Anchorage has scenery, serenity and thrills -- who knew?

Tag : rabbit pelts
Biking a mile from the bed and breakfast into downtown Anchorageseemed pretty straightforward -- until the owner stopped me on theway out the door.
``Let me have you sign a release so when a moose kills you, youwon't sue me.''
Um, moose? Kill?
I was not expecting crazed moose stompings, no less liability formsabout them, if for no other reason than, well, because this isAnchorage. Outdoorsy types long ago gave the state's biggest, mosturban city the nickname ''Los Anchorage,'' and they like to jokethat, if you stand at the right spot in town, you can almost seeAlaska.
It seemed, however, that there just might be enough Alaska-nesshere -- stunning scenery, outdoor thrills and rugged individualismcommon to unforgiving places -- to ignore the adventure-geeksnobbery and take a closer look.
Could it be you really can have an Alaska experience in Anchorage?And more importantly, do you have to risk a killer-moose attack tofind out?
Apparently, yes.
WHERE IT IS
Anchorage inhabits an arrow of land in the Y-shaped saddle that isCook Inlet, just across Turnagain Arm from the Kenai Peninsula.What started as a village of earliest inhabitants on Ship Creek --as well as brief pit stop for Capt. James Cook, Russian fur-tradingsettlement, railroad boomtown and shipping port for Yukon gold --has sprawled south and east to form a city of 277,000 people. Twoout of every five Alaskans live in Anchorage.
Despite its position at the foot of the towering Chugach Mountainsand within view of five other glacier-capped ranges and the tallestpeak in the United States, Anchorage tends to be generalized as anurban-industrial blot on an otherwise pristine coast.
The city has been slow to overcome the image, in part because itis, in fact, urban and industrial and suffers by comparison in astate where polar fleece is professional attire and where bearexperts sometimes serve as bear chow.
Anchorage, however, also is rural, mountainous, adventurous,friendly and, by comparison, more authentic than the state'ssmaller tourist-overrun towns on the cruise ship circuit.
Some of the credit goes to recent efforts to reconnect with thesurrounding nature and culture: adventure outfitters, heritagecenters, hiking and biking trails both rugged and paved. More ofthe credit goes to locals such as Lori and Angel, operators offunky, homelike Earth Bed and Breakfast, where I bunked a few days,who waved off common assumptions about Anchorage. Those who don'tsee Alaska in Anchorage, they said, aren't paying attention.
The best places to watch and meet the people who make it adestination are pubs and open-air markets. (Because it was 9:30 inthe morning, I opted for the latter.) A market can be a glimpseinto the soul of a place, or it can be a teeming cliche of touristtrinkets and food on a stick. Most, including the Anchorage Marketand Festival, are somewhere in between.
On weekends, the market fills a city block size lot on a bluffabove Ship Creek with people, music and small-town commerce. Thereare plenty of goods that can be found in any farmers' market, butwhere there are differences, they are big. Signs above cubiclespromised mammoth-bone jewelry, halibut and salmon quesadillas,monster produce ($5 cabbage the size of basketballs), local spices,Alaska T-shirts, hats and bicycle pants, and an entire line ofclothing ambiguously labeled ``Bad Girls of the North.''
Then there was the fur. Lots and lots of fur. It was a postmortempetting zoo with wolf, rabbit, fox and coyote; heads, tails andeverything in between. Racks and bins of pelts and fur-linedgloves, ear muffs and dolls were enough to make a Buddhist vegan'shead explode.
California this isn't, I thought. (My other clue was a barbecuevendor whose T-shirt stated: ``Vegetarian: Eskimo word for poorhunter.'')
I considered buying our cat a rabbit pelt dyed to resemble tigerskin, but thought it might be a little too Silence of the Lambs .
By noon, the aisles were packed with what I guessed to be a fairmix of locals and visitors, families and couples, young and old. Igravitated to the row of lunch wagons, including Rudolph's ReindeerMeat, whose baffling slogan -- ''When You Order Reindeer, You MakeSanta Smile'' -- made me opt instead for a stand serving up kosherBuffalo Bratwurst.
It didn't taste like chicken, and better yet, it didn't taste likeanywhere else.
REACHING A PEAK
Flattop Mountain, an aptly named stump in Chugach State Park 20miles from downtown Anchorage, is widely considered the mostclimbed peak in Alaska (which says more than the most climbed peakin, say, Nebraska). A downtown bicycle shop runs shuttles up to thetrailhead for the 1 ½-mile hike to the top.
Which is how I came to be trudging up a craggy wall with 30 poundsof cameras behind Pete, our freakishly fit guide who had shamed meinto climbing into the shuttle in the first place and now wasdigging at my pride by skittering up the rocky path, takingalternate routes and offering to carry my bag.
The trail gains 1,500 feet in elevation, but most of that rise iswithin the last quarter-mile, where walking turns to climbing. Itold Pete I had serious doubts about making the summit andreturning to the shuttle in time.
''We got a late start, so we can stay longer,'' he grinned. ``Youhave plenty of time.''
Damn.
When I finally reached the top, I thanked him. Seriously.
We had seen much of the scenery from the trail, but the top offersa full panoramic of Cook Inlet and the granite and basalt wallsthat line all sides of it: the Kenai, Talkeetna and Aleutianranges, and at least three volcanoes that have erupted in mylifetime. The real prize was a clear view of 20,320-foot Denali --the sheer size comes into focus when you see it from higher up.
On the way down, Pete suggested a shortcut more interesting thanthe main route. ``But you can't just throw yourself down.''
Um, never entered my mind.
It turned out it wasn't so much a trail as a sheer talus slope ofdeath (solid ground only in the loosest sense) and as I slid andrumbled down the gravel with half the hill hot on my tail, I wantedto find one of those adventure geeks who doesn't think Anchoragehas Alaska thrills -- and use his body as a board to surf the restof the way down.
NEW AGEY GROCERY
After signing away my rights under the Moose Stomping clause ofLori's form (and something about promising to bring back the bikeposthumously), I bought supplies at the nearby New Sagaya's CityMarket, a New Agey grocery store and gourmet deli. A few blocksaway, I caught the Chester Creek Trail, part of the more than 120miles of urban walking-jogging-biking trails that weave through thecity like quiet, secret passages through a crowded building.
The biking wasn't easy at first, but only because of the Flattophike the day before, as well as the huge meal at the GlacierBrewhouse the night before and some very late ''informationgathering'' at downtown's best watering hole, Humpy's (remindersthat not everything considered urban is a bad thing, even inAlaska).
The path, which winds past pastoral Westchester Lagoon (awintertime ice rink) before hooking up with my route downtown, isperfect for lightweights, with maximum scenery and greenery forrelatively little effort. The best of the urban paths is the TonyKnowles Coastal Trail, an 11-mile paved ribbon that winds along thetidal flats from the end of Second Avenue downtown to around theend of Point Campbell on the Turnagain Arm side of the inlet.
The trail is smooth and mostly flat with a few mild rises andrewarding descents. After a while, the floatplanes and trainengines were the only manmade sounds, eventually giving way togulls, turns and wind through the spruce, western hemlock and paperbirch. The highlights (which required frequent stops on the bike)include the view across the flats at the Anchorage skyline (dwarfedby the Chugach ridgeline), the benches positioned to appreciateDenali or the Kenai range, and the handful of parks on the trail,including one not meant for recreation so much as reflection:Earthquake Park.
Anchorage history is filled with times of boom and bust in fur,fishing, gold and oil. Its biggest bust, however, was geologic,when on March 27, 1964, an earthquake measuring 9.2 on the Richterscale and centered 80 miles away so successfully rearranged thelandscape that topo maps were out of date overnight and entireneighborhoods slid into Cook Inlet. (The quake, the strongest inNorth American history, is why Anchorage has few classic buildingsfrom its early-1900s boomtown days.)
The displays and sculpture are thought provoking -- but don'tcapture the imagination as well as the breaks in the earth stillvisible from the park where the land is still healing after 40years.
After the trail turned inland into thicker forests, a woman bikingthe other direction said flatly, ''Moose on the left.'' Ahalf-second later, a mother the size of a moving van and her twocalves crashed through the brush and onto the path I'd just biked,blocking one end of a bridge over a ravine.
I pedaled hard to the other end of the bridge and watched themwatching me. As a moose-spotting newbie, all I could think was:Those are not Bullwinkle.
Two bikers coming from the other direction stopped to take picturesand, eventually, try to figure out how to get past the beastsblocking the other end of the bridge, happily lunching on treelimbs. When the trio migrated a few yards off the path into a tinyclearing, the other two bikers made a break for it, only to haveone of the calves give chase for a distance before returning tomunching spruce.
The situation was unnerving -- until I remembered that this is whatI came to Alaska for. I edged across the bridge and took pictures,only getting the stink-eye from the mother once. When they finallymoved on, I slipped past and headed for civilization. A bikerpassed going the other way.
''Moose on the right,'' I said, feeling like a veteran of a crazedmoose encounter.
Back at Earth B&B, I parked the bike and crashed in the Brady-likeliving room, where I noticed a copy of the Milepost , the state directory and guide. It included a passage I probablyshould have read earlier:
``Unpredictable and aggressive, moose can be extremely dangerous.This applies also to bears that occasionally wander into thecity.''
Hmmm. Aggressive, unpredictable moose and free-roaming bears.
Los Anchorage? Yeah, right.
------
GOING TO ANCHORAGE
WHERE TO STAY
In general, Anchorage hotels in summer have some of the highestrates in North America (among comparable hotels). There is noshortage of cozy bed and breakfast inns, which tend to be lessexpensive, but are also farther from downtown.
• Earth Bed & Breakfast , 1001 West 12th Ave., 907-279-9907, www.earthbb.com . Inviting home that still feels like a private home. Duringsummer, bedrooms for two are $119 (shared bath) to $139 (privatebath) and include an excellent breakfast spread. Bicycles for rent;area tours available.
• Historic Anchorage Hotel , 330 E St., 800-544-0988, www.historicanchoragehotel.com . Downtown hotel built in 1916 doesn't look all that historic, butoffers basic comforts in a good location. Rates: $178-$234including tax, depending on day and season.
WHERE TO EAT
• Glacier Brewhouse , 737 West Fifth Ave., 907-274-2739, www.glacierbrewhouse.com . Sprawling brew pub with steaks and seafood Alaska-style, upscalepub grub and extensive menus for beer, wine, cocktails andaperitifs. Entrees: $11-$37.
• Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse , 610 W. Sixth Ave., 907-276-2337, www.humpys.com . Hard-partying bar with music at night, restaurant by day withexcellent pub grub, salads and hearty weekend brunch.
• New Sagaya's City Market , 900 W. 13th Ave., 907-274-6173, www.newsagaya.com . New Agey, health-conscious grocery store and gourmet deli thatstands out in a town with few convenience stores.
WHAT TO DO
• Flattop Mountain Shuttle and Tony Knowles Coastal Trail: DowntownBicycle Rental, 333 W. Fourth Ave., No. 206, 907-279-5293, www.alaska-bike-rentals.com . Bikes: $16 for three hours, $4 each extra hour. Flattop shuttle:$22 round trip.
• Anchorage Market and Festival: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday andSunday, mid-May through early September. Produce, crafts, clothing,pelts, local food vendors. Admission: free. www.anchoragemarkets.com .
INFORMATION
• Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau: www.anchorage.net