Rabbit Lake Trail in Chugach State Park

Chugach State Park, located mostly within Anchorage, Alaska, contains almost 500,000 acres of land and is one of the four largest state parks in the United States. The park is bordered on the west by the Chugach Mountain Range, by Knik Arm on the north, Turnagain Arm on the south, and Upper and Lower Lake George and Chugach National Forest on the east. The park is notable for its extensive network of hiking and bike trails and is a very popular hiking area for resident of Anchorage.

While we have been in Anchorage six days, unfortunately, because we had to spend so much time with our RV repair and other logistics, we were left with only one day to hike.  After some research, we chose Rabbit Lake Trail, which is about 9 miles out-and-back.  It leads from a trailhead on a gravel road in the hills east of Anchorage, and climbs along the valley of Rabbit Creek, past Flattop Mountain, Tabletop Peak and Ptarmigan Peak to a cirque bounded by Homicide Peak, North Suicide Peak and South Suicide Peak (the highest peak on Cook Inlet's Turnagain Arm).  In the cirque is Rabbit Lake, a glacial tarn that is graced with a permanent snowfield hanging above it.  Gorgeous, as you will soon see.

We set out this morning, July 20, 2019, driving about a half hour from our campground to the parking area.  At the trailhead, we had a view west, down into the City of Anchorage, with Cook Inlet beyond, which on this misty day were hard to make out in the distance in the photo below:

As started our climb, the trail was bordered in alder and cottonwood, with occasional spruce trees.  It seemed like rivulets crossed the trail every quarter mile or so, and in places the trail itself was the streambed.

Colorful wildflowers graced the trail and the hillside.  One notable splash of color was provided by this gorgeous purple-coned spruce:

We climbed from the trailhead at 2,000 feet to Rabbit Lake at 3,200 feet.  While most of the mountainsides were clear of snow, there were still a few snowfields to enjoy as we hiked:

The fireweed is in full bloom, and some areas on the hillsides were simply abalze with red-violet:

By the time we reached about 3,000 feet of elevation, we found snowfields not far from us:

After about 4 miles, we got our first glimpse of the cirque formed by North Suicide Peak and South Suicide Peak, which we could see through a glacier-carved col:

We stopped in the col briefly for a view back down Rabbit Creek Valley, from where we had walked:

This was the view of Rabbit Lake that greeted us.  Misty, broken clouds teased us with the possibility of views of the summits of North and South Suicide Peaks.  The water of Rabbit Lake was glassy and calm, broken occasionally by the rises of mountain trout:

For some reason, people had piled large rocks into a cairn near the shore of the lake.  Kathy couldn't resist finding her own rock to add to the pile:

To the south, near the place where the lake empties into Rabbit Creek, we could see a ridge but not its top, due to the low clouds:

Here is what Rabbit Creek looked like as it started down the valley from the shore of the lake:

The entire valley was carved by glaciers, and is located in the alpine zone, so the ground and mountainsides were vested only in low shrubs, grasses, mosses and lichen.  The floor of the valley was dotted with large boulders.  We weren't sure whether they were deposited by the receding glaciers or had more recently broken off and rolled down from the looming peaks above us:

Heading back down the trail from the lake, we stumbled on some places where the water runs so constantly that the ground is covered with moss, grasses and wildflowers:

When we reached the trailhead again, we spotted these orphaned lovies sitting on a boulder -- probably found by hikers along the trail.  The little stuffed giraffe and the blue binky wanted to tell us the stories of young hikers who were probably carried up the trail by parents who were unaware that the little darlings were casting their possessions onto the trail behind them.

While the trail was of moderate difficulty, and rose only about 300 feet per mile, it was very rocky underfoot, which, together with the relatively longer mileage, made for a challenging hike for us.  But with payoff we had in sitting by Rabbit Lake, in that glacial cirque, eating our picnic lunch, we mainly thought of the beautiful views we had rather than our complaining feet.