Chena River State Recreation Area Tours and Tickets

There are plenty of ways to experience the Chena River State Recreation Area. Looking at ratings and reviews previously given by customers, these are the best tours available right now:

• SkyChase™ | Northern Lights Experience - Free Photography and More

• Northern Lights and Aurora Photography with Warm Geodesic Dome

• Guided Fishing Excursion in Fairbanks (Full-Day)

It’s free to visit the Chena River State Recreation Area, though you'll pay for things like parking, camping, and boating. Fun tours can turn exploring this wild land into an adventure, such as scouting for the northern lights or fishing—tours start at US$200 per person.

Think of Chena River State Recreation Area as Alaska’s surrogate national park—in summertime, there's hiking, fishing, backpacking, kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing, and plenty of wildlife viewing. In winter, go hiking, cross-country skiing, ice fishing, snowmobiling, northern lights viewing, and dog mushing. Campgrounds (RVs and tents) and cabins make staying here easy, too.

Granite Tors is one of the area's most popular trails—a 15-mile (24-kilometer) mountainous loop. Angel Rocks Trail offers a more moderate trek, with views of surrounding mountains and valleys across 3.5 miles (5 kilometers). For a 2-day doozie, try Chena Dome Trail, a 30-mile (28-kilometer) jaunt with a first-come, first-served shelter cabin at the halfway point.

Yes, the Chena River State Recreation Area is a great place to catch the northern lights, but only from late August through early April. Its location just a stone's throw from Fairbanks makes it an ideal spot—easy-access tours are offered from the city. Summer’s sunlit nights won't work, though.

The area is a great spot for wildlife-watching. You may find moose grazing in the beaver ponds and sloughs along Chena Hot Springs Road, and you’ll likely catch eagles overhead and hoary marmots, pikas, and ptarmigans scurrying in the undergrowth. Black and grizzly bears inhabit the area, too, though they’re seldom seen.