About Us

We offer iceberg Kayaking, glacier trekking, comet Heli hiking adventures with Alpine Air, scenic glacier rafting to Spencer Glacier, and Alaska's best glacier salmon bake. We are Girdwood's only guide service with a local hire policy. We pioneered the Spencer Glacier Area beginning in 2001, and have been the top day tour on the AK Railroad Glacier Discovery Train for over ten years. We offer a variety of adventures for all ages and all abilities.

Local, First Rate Guides

Chugach Adventures is one of the only guide service companies in Alaska with a local hire policy and we hold a firm belief that staying local and hiring local enables us to have the best guides & give the best quality to our guests.  Our long-tenured guides have been with us since we started in 2013 and the level & service that these professional guides set the gold standard. 

Environmentally Committed

Our trips are centered around treading lightly in the natural places that we visit and leaving the area unaltered by our presence.  We intend to educate guests on the natural surroundings and cultural history of the Chugach National Forest.  In 2016, we became certified with Adventure Green Alaska, the state’s official sustainable tourism certification organization and we continually strive to promote sustainability on all levels of our business.  

Activities & Tours

We operate on all three rivers at the head of Turnagain Arm Ocean- named for when Captain Cook turned again in Cook Inlet while searching for the Inside Passage. The three scenic glacier rivers we operate on all start from separate glacier lakes: Placer River originates from Spencer Glacier, Twenty Mile River starts from 20-Mile Glacier, and Portage Creek begins from Portage Lake and Portage Glacier.

Access the Chugach Mountains with an unforgettable scenic helicopter flight prior to your Vista Glacier Hiking, Iceberg Rafting or Glacier Kayaking Adventure with Chugach Adventures. There is no better way to fly from Girdwood than in an R 44 Helicopter with Alpine Air Helicopters

All of our kayak day tours operate at Spencer Glacier Lake, which is a perfect paddle for beginners and expert paddlers. There is no tidal influence at Spencer Lake and no boat wakes. Spencer Lake is approximately 2 miles long by a half mile wide and growing every year as the glacier recedes.

Custom Overnight Glacier Camping Trips at 4 Locations in the Chugach National Forest. We recommend specific camping locations dependent on the time of year & a variety of factors: access to these locations, snow depth at elevation, water levels in the river, weather, and ultimately what our guests want to do and where we recommend they go do it

Location

We are based out of Girdwood,  located 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Anchorage, at 1553 Alyeska Hwy.