National Trails Day hikers get a boat ride across Skilak Lake, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Happy hikers reach the alpine area of the Cottonwood Creek Trail, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

The first Saturday of June is celebrated with thousands of events nationwide as National Trails Day.  This year Kenai National Wildlife Refuge joined the celebration by hosting a special hike on Cottonwood Creek Trail, deep in Kenai wilderness.  Hikers signed up first-come-first-serve for a Refuge-sponsored boat trip across Skilak Lake and an interpretive hike to the alpine area above the Lake.  Refuge rangers gave presentations on area history, wildlife, trail building, and wilderness values.  The Refuge has over 200 miles of hiking and canoe trails within its 2 million acres, but the Cottonwood Creek Trail is visited by relatively few of the over 3 million people who travel through the Refuge each year.  The remoteness is one of the things that makes the hike so special however, and Saturday's hikers were all thrilled with the experience.  They were constantly on the look out for black and brown bears, moose, and caribou, and enjoyed wonderful vistas throughout the day.  Now in its 14th year of celebration, National Trails Day is a special day of recognition of a resource important to millions of Americans.  For more infomation on National Trails Day, go to www.AmericanHiking.org.