Alaska is the land of mountains, glaciers and moose, but for the sporting-minded, it can also be a land of golfing, geocaching and running.
In midsummer, daylight beckons at all hours. It's possible to watch a baseball game at Mulcahy Stadium at 7 p.m. and still get in nine holes of disc golf before the sun sets. Of course, hiking and biking trails are always an option, but Alaska has a number of organized sports to pick from too.
Geocaching
For Wes Skinner, geocaching and visiting Alaska go hand in hand.
"If people come up here to cache, they won't believe what they can see in a short amount of time," said Skinner, a regional director for Geocache Alaska (www.geocachealaska.org ).
What is geocaching?
It's one of the world's newest sports, starting in 2000 with the demilitarization of Global Positioning Satellites. Now anyone with a personal GPS can play.
All you have to know is where the cache - usually a small storage container with a logbook and a few items inside - is located. You can find latitude and longitude coordinates to caches at geocachealaska.org or at www.geocaching.com . In early 2007, Alaska had more than 1,300 caches, with nearly 700 of them in the Anchorage area.
Some are tiny, some are pretty easy to find and all of them are fun, according to Skinner.
"It's like a treasure hunt, but really it's a game of location," he said. "A cache can be as small as the cap on a mechanical pencil all the way up to an old ammo can, which is the preferred thing up here.
"Being a game of location, if you come to visit Alaska and you want to know about some nice hikes or cool viewpoints, you get online and find a cache - 'Here's one I can do in four hours' - and you're off.
"People who are downtown can hike out to them without having a car. We've got them at the fish hatchery, along the Coastal Trail. It's popular with all age groups."
Orienteering
Another way to get into the woods and enjoy some of what makes Alaska special is orienteering. While geocaching requires a GPS, orienteering relies on a map and occasionally a compass.
Some people run the courses, while many enjoy a walking pace.
Courses can follow established trails or, for the more advanced participants, go through swamps and thick woods. People of all ages can participate, from babies in backpacks to elderly friends who walk together.
"It's a sport of finding your way from one point to another," said Leslie Kroloff, vice president of media relations for the Arctic Orienteering Club (www.oalaska.org ).
For visitors, who Kroloff said frequently show up at AOC summer events, orienteering is a perfect introduction to Alaska.
"Mainly, you get to see what Alaska is all about - the outdoors, the beauty and the wild animals sometimes," she said. "What Alaska is is more than just going downtown. And you really meet a lot of nice people."
Each week, the local club meets at a different location and offers a meet. Beginners are welcome. Competitors start when they arrive, generally from 5 to 7 p.m. Kroloff said orienteerers usually wear walking or running shoes, pants and comfortable clothing. She encourages people to bring bug repellent.
Fees for meets are $6 for guests and $5 for members.
Golf
You might think golfing and the land of snow and ice don't mix. You'd be wrong.
Anchorage has several golf courses, some of them designed by well-respected golf architects including Robin Nelson (Moose Run's Creek Course) and Robert Trent Jones Jr. (Eagleglen).
Moose Run on Fort Richardson (mooserungolfcourse.com, 428-0056) has a pair of 18-hole courses, making it the world's northernmost
36-hole course. The Hill Course features gently rolling hills on the front nine and was built in 1952, while the Creek Course features holes with views of Ship Creek. It was built in 2000 and has a 640-yard par-5.
Another military course, Eagle-glen on Elmendorf Air Force Base (552-3821), was built in 1970 and has 18 holes. Ship Creek also comes into play on a number of holes.
The military courses can be played by civilians.
Anchorage Golf Club, 3651 O'Malley Road (www.alyeskaresort.com , 522-3363), is another 18-hole course in the city. On clear days, there are views across Cook Inlet and of the Alaska Range. Tee times are available as early as 4:30 a.m. and as late at 10 p.m. in the middle of summer.
Also in town is a par-3 course, Russian Jack Golf Course at Russian Jack Springs Park off DeBarr Road. The nine-hole course has artificial turf greens.
There are a pair of courses in the Valley, Settlers Bay Golf Course,
Mile 8 Knik-Goose Bay Road in Wasilla (www.settlersbay.org , 376-5466), and the Palmer Golf Course, 1000 Lepak Ave. in Palmer (745-4653).
Disc Golf
If chasing a little ball around a golf course isn't your speed, grab a disc (a lot like a Frisbee but a little more sport-specific) and head for one of Anchorage's many disc golf courses.
Disc golf combines some of summer's greatest highlights: a walk in the park, a beverage or two in hand, sunshine and the outdoors. Add in a few chain baskets and a couple of discs and you have the perfect afternoon.
Anchorage's most popular course is downtown near Westchester Lagoon. The short course tests a player's finesse, not power. The nine-hole course has two sets of driving pads. Bike paths and the golf course share the same space, so watch out for bikers and pedestrians.
Kincaid Park offers an 18-hole course with three tee pads. The wilderness park at the end of Raspberry Road often has thick woods and deep rough, so it's a good idea to have spotters watch the tosses. Gates at Kincaid Park are locked at 10 p.m. nightly.
Other courses are at Service High School on Abbott Road and Russian Jack Springs Park at the intersection of DeBarr Road and Boniface Parkway. Other courses are in Eagle River, the Palmer/Wasilla area, Peters Creek and Kenai. For more information, visit www.alaskadiscgolf.com.
Running
Alaskans love to run. They'll run marathons, they'll run up mountains, they'll even run in the winter.
But the summer months are when running events really hit their stride. There are events nearly every weekend.
Two of the biggest summer events are the Mayor's Marathon and Half-Marathon (www.mayorsmarathon.
com ) on June 23 and the Humpy's Marathon (www.humpysmarathon.
com ) on Aug. 19.
The Mayor's Marathon is two days after the summer solstice and offers visitors the chance to enjoy nearly endless summer daylight. It is
also a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. The marathon course starts on the east side of town and travels along bike paths, gravel roads and Chester Creek before ending at West High School. In addition to the 26-mile race, runners can also choose a half-marathon, a five-mile run or a marathon relay.
Humpy's Marathon also offers half-marathon and five-mile distances. The race starts and finishes downtown, but most of the running takes place on the Coastal and the Chester Creek trails.
The calendar is filled with other races. Some of those include:
- The Heart Run (www.heartrun.com ), perfect for early-season visitors looking to put five kilometers under their shoes. The race is April 28.
- Alaska Run for Women (www.akrfw.org ), an all-female event on June 9. In 2006, nearly 4,300 runners and walkers participated in the five- and one-mile runs.
- Alaska Salmon Runs (www.copperriverwild.org ), which include marathon, half-marathon and shorter races July 7 in Cordova. The events are part of the Copper River Wild Salmon Festival.
Check out the online racing calendar at www.anchoragerunningclub.org
for more information or registration details. For mountain races, visit www.alaskamountainrunners.org.
Baseball
During Alaska's short summer season, the Alaska Baseball League puts some of the top collegiate players on display. Two ABL teams call Anchorage home, the Anchorage Bucs and the Anchorage Glacier Pilots. Other teams in the league include the Mat-Su Miners, the Peninsula Oilers and the Goldpanners of Fairbanks.
Anchorage home games are played at Mulcahy Stadium on 16th Avenue in Midtown. Games generally start at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Current or former stars who played in the ABL include Jason Giambi, Michael Young, Tom Seaver, Mark Mc-Gwire, Dave Winfield and Randy Johnson.
For more information, visit the ABL's Web site at www.alaskabase
ballleague.org or the Anchorage Bucs' (www.anchoragebucs.com ) or Glacier Pilots' (www.glacierpilots.com ) Web sites.
Special sections editor Steve Edwards can be reached at sedwards@adn.com. Visit his Alaska travel blog at www.alaska.com/alaskology.
Editor's picks
- Serenity View: N 61° 09.005,
W 150° 03.162. If you are a geocacher, you know what to do. If you're not a geocacher, go get a GPS unit and find this location. It's in Kincaid Park and is one of hundreds of geocaches in the Anchorage area. This one has a great view, hence its name. You can find more at www.geocachealaska.org .
- Grab a disc: Is there a better way to spend a sunny afternoon than strolling around one of Anchorage's beautiful parks? It's hard to beat. If you've got a couple flying discs and a basket to shoot at, all the better.
- Midnight Sun tee time: Stay up late and hit the links. There aren't many places where you can say you were golfing around midnight. This is one of them ... enjoy.
