Rabbit Lake or Rabbit Creek: One of Southcentral’s best family-friendly hikes

It’s hard to beat a stroll along the Rabbit Lake trail on a sunny, calm day: This relatively flat, easy trip along an old roadbed makes the perfect day outing or first backpacking trip with the entire family.

As usual, however, it comes with an alternative name: You might occasionally see this trail called the Rabbit Creek trail, thanks to the creek that flows through a nearby valley, racing you to the lake of the same name.

This is hike 51 in my guidebook Day Hiking Southcentral Alaska, and hike 14 in 50 Hikes Around Anchorage.

Hiking to Rabbit Lake

As you hike the Rabbit Lake trail, take a minute to appreciate the fantastic frontcountry juncture you’ve found yourself in: To begin with, today’s hike shares a trailhead with the Sunnyside Flattop trail. As the Rabbit Lake trail strikes off from that shared trailhead to the southeast you can count every peak along the Flattop ridge, starting with Flattop itself, then the rocky comb of Peak Two, the much pointier and more distinct Peak Three, Flaketop, and Ptarmigan Peak.

As you reach Rabbit Lake itself — just a moderate 5.1 miles from the trailhead, with mostly great visibility as you hike, excepting some brush along the first two miles — you’ll see not just the glittering blue waters of the lake, but also the twin sentinels of North and South Suicide peaks behind it.

From this side, the Suicides are a treacherous ascent full of loose rock. But you can hike up the much gentler far side of South Suicide Peak as a continuation of the Falls Creek trail, which begins down along Turnagain Arm.

There’s one more peak to spot: on the far side of the valley that houses the Rabbit Creek trail, you can see another ridge leading back west toward McHugh Peak. And finally, if you walk up to the shore of Rabbit Lake and look to the south, you’ll be looking down the valley that houses McHugh Lake and a relatively lightly traveled trail — called the McHugh Lake trail, as a matter of fact — that eventually leads down to the McHugh Creek trailhead along Turnagain Arm.

So obviously, Rabbit Lake is the center of the hiking universe near Anchorage. Its that relative proximity to everything, paired with stupendous scenery, and its very manageable distance and elevation gain, that make this such a family-friendly choice of outing.

But please don’t be fooled into thinking you’re still in town: Very high winds are possible here, along with sudden weather changes. Just because the day starts out sunny, calm and dry doesn’t mean it’ll end that way, so you should still plan to be self-sufficient. Bear sightings are also common during the fall, as they browse for berries in the mountains.

Rumor has it that you can fish for trout in Rabbit Lake; see the ADF&G sport fishing regulations for more details.