Alaska.com: Alaska's Travel Website

Alaska has two national forests, the Chugach and the Tongass.

They're used extensively for all kinds of recreation, from fishing and hunting to mountain biking and snowmobile riding.

• Chugach National Forest covers much of coastal Southcentral Alaska, including part of the Kenai Peninsula, the area around Prince William Sound and the Chugach Mountains south of Anchorage.

• Tongass National Forest covers the islands and mainland of Southeast Alaska's Inside Passage.

The forests, established in 1907, both serve a number of uses, such as logging, recreation and subsistence.

The Chugach covers 5.9 million acres, or 9,300 square miles (roughly equivalent to Vermont). The Tongass covers 16.6 million acres, or 26,500 square miles (West Virginia).

Two national monuments -- Admiralty Island and Misty Fjords -- are found in the Tongass. There are numerous other wilderness areas.

The forests offer lots of pleasure for residents of and visitors to Southcentral and Southeast Alaska: hiking, camping, fishing, birding, hunting, snowmobiling, skiing, canoeing and river running, mountaineering and glacier viewing.

Remote public-use cabins are available for a small fee, although flying, hiking or boating to them may be expensive or time consuming.