Book and Journal of Mattanaw

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# Wilderness is Close to Anchorage

Adventure is just a short distance from Anchorage.

Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh

Published: January 26th 2017

Edited: Original Edition

Before arriving in Anchorage, and Alaska generally, I considered national parks to be the ultimate destinations for scenic beauty. The importance of these parks for preservation, and for providing ease of access to wilderness is unquestioned. However, in Alaska there are incredible spots outside of the park system. The same is true with Canada and other more unpopulated places. Chugach State Park is an example of superlative beauty, and it is right outside of Anchorage. In Anchorage you don’t need to go far for amazing sites and adventure, and when planning trips I don’t really consider national parks as frequently, inside the State or abroad.

If you start from the center of Midtown Anchorage and you drive south, it only takes about 10 minutes before you are in a mostly unpopulated area, with spectacular landscapes. The video above shows some sights after 15 minutes driving south. Of course, you could venture out on a radial from Anchorage in any direction and find wilderness and variety. If you plan travel to Alaska, I would recommend reconsidering visits to the national parks. They are amazing, it is true, but they are far away from the city center. Parks like Denali and Wrangell-St.Elias are better for subsequent trips, if more than one trip is possible.

Mattanaw I., formerly "Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh"

I am a retired executive, software architect, and consultant, with professional/academic experience in the fields of Moral Philosophy and Ethics, Computer Science, Psychology, Philosophy, and more recently, Economics. I am a Pandisciplinarian, and Lifetime Member of the High Intelligence Community.

Articles on this site are eclectic, and draw from content prepared between 1980 and 2024. Topics touch on all of life's categories, and blend them with logical rationality and my own particular system of ethics. The common theme connecting all articles is moral philosophy, even if that is not immediately apparent. Any of my articles that touch on "the good and virtuous life" will be published here. These articles interrelate with my incipient theory of ethics, two decades in preparation. This Book and Journal is the gradual unfolding of that ethic, and my living autobiography, in a collection of individual books that fit into groups of book collections.

This Book and Journal is already one of the largest private websites and writings ever prepared, at nearly 1 million words, greater than 50,000 images and videos, and nearly one terabyte of space utilized. The entire software architecture is of my creation. Issues of the book for sale can be found under featured. These texts are handmade by myself, and are of excellent quality, and constitute the normal issues of my journal that can also be subscribed to. The entire work is a transparent work in progress. Not all is complete, and it will remain in an incomplete state until death.

I welcome and appreciate constructive feedback and conversation with readers. You can reach me at mattanaw@mattanaw.com (site related), cmcavanaugh@g.harvard.edu (academic related), or christopher.matthew.cavanaugh@member.mensa.org (intelligence related), or via the other social media channels listed at the bottom of the site.

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