Mount Eklutna: The perfect chaser after a hike up Bear Point

Although Mount Eklutna makes a fun, challenging hike on its own, most hikers I know prefer to tackle it as the second half of a loop hike that goes up toward Bear Point, cuts across to Mount Eklutna, then descends back to the valley floor from there.

For the sake of clarity, I’ll write the first part of this post about the standalone trail (hiking up the Mount Eklutna trail, then hiking back down the same way). The next part will cover doing this as a loop hike, starting with Bear Point. You’d use the same trailhead for either option.

The trail up Mount Eklutna is hike 29 in Day Hiking Southcentral Alaska, and part of hike 43 in 50 Hikes Around Anchorage.

Side note: Many people (including me!) tend to call this Eklutna Peak.

Hiking Mount Eklutna

If you want to hike straight up and down Mount Eklutna, you’ll first start by hiking 1.3 miles on the Big Peters Creek Trail. This is generally a quiet, pleasant and mostly flat woodland walk, although you may encounter speedy mountain bikers, and during the winter skiers and snowmachiners use the trail.

During the summer this trail is a nice spot for watching/listening to migratory songbirds, and bear and moose sightings are common.

After 1.3 miles on the Big Peters Creek Trail, you’ll hit a signed left turn for the Mount Eklutna trail, which becomes a narrow footpath as it snakes steadily uphill through the brush, trees, and bugs. Don’t leave your bug spray at home! Doing this hike on a breezy day will also help keep the bugs off.

The trail starts to crest beyond brushline at 2.1 miles from the trailhead, and becomes quite steep until it gains the saddle just below your intended summit. Once at the saddle, turn east (hiker’s right) and follow the obvious steep, eroded, and sometimes rocky ridgeline to its high point.

If you’re comfortable with high places and some minimal exposure, that last push to the summit of Mount Eklutna is nothing out of the ordinary. If you find heights or unstable footing stressful, though, you might be a little sketched out by the overall steepness and somewhat loose terrain. And this little ridgewalk can be genuinely dangerous during the winter and early spring, when a rime of ice or snow remains; make sure you’re properly prepared if you want to tackle it in those conditions.

Directions for a Bear Point-to-Mount Eklutna Loop Hike

If you’d rather do Mount Eklutna as part of a loop, it’s best to go up the Bear Point trail and then down the Mount Eklutna trail, because finding the proper place to descend from Bear Point can be a real challenge.

You can click through to my post about Bear Point for more detailed directions on that part of the hike, or use these abbreviated directions for Bear Point. Turning this into a loop hike ups the elevation gain slightly, to 3,220 feet total, but provides only the barest increase in distance, from 6 miles round-trip to 6.1.

Directions for Bear Point

From the Big Peters Creek trailhead (the same one you’d use for Mount Eklutna), follow the Big Peters Creek trail for just 0.1 mile. This brings you to an unmarked but well-traveled left turn — the trail up Bear Point.

Stay on that trail, which is by turns muddy, eroded and very steep, until it crests on a broad tundra shelf. Take a look at where you just emerged onto the flattish land, and memorize a couple of landmarks in case you need to go back down that way.

Now, look for a patchy footpath leading roughly east (hiker’s right), more or less following the very broad shelf of land that eventually becomes the ridge leading to Mount Eklutna. This path will become more defined as you approach the mountain, which first makes itself known as the very pointy, triangular peak showing beyond a swell of the tundra. See pictures below.

Your next major landmark is the saddle before Mount Eklutna. Go ahead up the ridge to tag the summit if you like; to complete the loop you’ll follow the trail downhill from that saddle and onto the valley floor, where it intersects with the Big Peters Creek trail. Turn west (right, for descending hikers) and hike 1.3 miles along the Big Peters Creek trail to return to your starting point.

Pictures of the Hike Up Mount Eklutna