Peters Creek

Description from Mike Adams:

I live on Peters Creek (I assume you're talking about the one in Chugiak - there's several around the state), upstream from the Old Glenn. Where I'm at, the river is generally a class III run in a shear-wall canyon (150-200 ft to the rim). At the bottom of the canyon is a short class IV-V finale, prior to several miles of class II to I waters, with logs all the the way across and sweepers in many areas and very knobby with lots of rocks. From what little I've been able to piece together in the 12 years I've lived at this site, there used to be a group of paddlers that did the run, but kept getting chased off by irate property owners waving shotgun(s). I used to paddle WW & Ocean K1, but had to stop due to a back injury/surgery. There is a 40 ft waterfall about 1/2 a mile above my property. Although this is a very narrow river in the upper end, there is nearly always enough volume to sweep your feet out from under you with any wading that might occur. The canyon run has lots of shelf drops (1-4'), occasional logs at various heights at or above the waterline. Occasional landslides have been known to create short tunnels (I've only witnessed one) while the river carves out a new path over, under or around the obstacle.

Access: There is a parking lot at a day use area on the old Glenn where you could walk 1/4 mile upstream on that side or cross the pedestrian bridge, and hike up further (to the base of the canyon) on the Anchorage side of the river. 6-8' tall devils club patches abound in this area, so be careful. There is public access at the top of the valley, with some parking, but I don't know if there's any trails specifically to the river. The main trail heads east towards the Peters Creek Glacier (approx 15 miles). I'm guessing, but there's approximately a mile of river between these two access areas, with private property on both sides. Some public trail easements exist, but are discontinuous - existing on some properties and not on the adjacent properties to each side, and sometimes exist where walking is impossible. A good property/street map is advisable if you're wanting to get there. The lower stretch below the Glenn Highway only has a couple of small bridge crossings (neither of which is very friendly to water access due to private properties) before the stream reaches Knik Arm.

This canyon is somewhat like 6-mile canyon only narrower and oftentimes much steeper. Mistakes could be short-lived. Rescue could be extremely difficult due to the noise of the whitewater in the canyon, and yelling for help generally would never get heard above the rim, even if there was a home there. Most cell phones don't work down there. One of my dogs was on the lip of the canyon further upstream, when it broke off, dropping him in kind of a rock slide to a spot approx. 200' lower: it took me approx. 7 hrs to find him and do 2 rope descents.