Kenai Lake, Alaska, 1997

Outdoor activities, such as horseback riding, are popular pastimes on the Kenai Peninsula. The Kenai is Alaska's most heavily trafficked playground. Some 190 miles (306 kilometers) long and up to 170 miles (273 kilometers) wide, it is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined but with only 44,000 year-round residents.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Taking on the Kenai," May/June 1998, National Geographic Traveler magazine)