If your New Year’s resolution involves getting off the couch and heading to the gym, why not go for a hike instead?
That’s the message from the First Day Hikes initiative, an effort by America’s State Parks to get more people outside on the first of January.
Five state parks in Alaska are hosting guided hikes on January 1:
- In the Interior, at Quartz Lake State Recreation Area north of Delta Junction, there is a 1-mile hike, ski or snowshoe at 12 p.m.
- Eveline State Recreation Site in Homer is hosting a 3-mile hike also 12 p.m.
- Old Sitka State Historical Park in Sitka is hosting a 1 1/2 to 3-mile loop at Mosquito Cove Trail in at 9:30 a.m.
- Ketchikan’s Refuge Cove State Recreation Site is hosting a 1/2 mile hike at 11:00 a.m.
- Airport Dike Trail in Mendenhall Wetlands State Game Refuge in Juneau will have a 3-mile guided hike at 10:30 a.m.
Emily Russell is the voice of Alaska morning news as Alaska Public Media’s Morning News Host and Producer.
Originally from the Adirondacks in upstate New York, Emily moved to Alaska in 2012. She skied her way through three winters in Fairbanks, earning her Master’s degree in Northern Studies from UAF.
Emily’s career in radio started in Nome in 2015, reporting for KNOM on everything from subsistence whale harvests to housing shortages in Native villages. She then worked for KCAW in Sitka, finally seeing what all the fuss with Southeast, Alaska was all about.
Back on the road system, Emily is looking forward to driving her Subaru around the region to hike, hunt, fish and pick as many berries as possible. When she’s not talking into the mic in the morning, Emily can be found reporting from the peaks above Anchorage to the rivers around Southcentral.
