Trails in Katmai National Park & Preserve

Katmai is not a trail park in the conventional sense. With only a handful of maintained routes and millions of acres of raw Alaska wilderness beyond them, hiking here feels less like checking off paths and more like stepping into a vast, living landscape shaped by volcanoes, salmon, and brown bears. Most of the established hikes are easy, especially around Brooks Camp, making it possible for casual visitors to stretch their legs and experience the park on foot without committing to a major expedition. Even these shorter walks carry a sense of drama that is uniquely Katmai: open country, constant wildlife awareness, and the feeling that the terrain still belongs first to the wild. The standout hike is Dumpling Mountain, the park’s primary difficult trail and the one to choose if you want a real climb with sweeping views over Brooks Camp, Naknek Lake, and bear country below. It delivers the most sustained effort of Katmai’s maintained trail system and rewards it with a grand sense of scale. Elsewhere, hikers can venture into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes for a more remote experience in one of Alaska’s most extraordinary volcanic landscapes, where ash-filled valleys and stark terrain tell the story of the Novarupta eruption. What makes hiking in Katmai special is precisely this combination of scarcity and immensity: there are few formal trails, but every walk feels outsized, unforgettable, and deeply connected to one of the wildest national parks in America.