Sixmile Creek flows north for about 8 miles (13 km) on the Kenai Peninsula to the historic community of Sunrise, on the south shore of Turnagain Arm, roughly 27 miles (43 km) southeast of Anchorage and 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Girdwood, Alaska. Its watershed drains an estimated 169,000 acres (68,400 ha) and begins as Granite Creek, which flows north from Turnagain Pass along the Seward Highway. Bench Creek and Center Creek join Granite Creek to form East Fork Sixmile Creek; where that meets Canyon Creek, the stream becomes Sixmile Creek proper before entering Turnagain Arm. The watershed’s bedrock belongs to the Late Cretaceous Valdez Group, a thick sequence of sandstone, siltstone, and slate that forms part of the Chugach-Prince William composite terrane, an accretionary complex built up along Alaska’s southern margin as marine sediments were deposited in a deep ocean trench and then scraped onto the continent over millions of years.

For centuries before prospectors arrived, this stretch of Turnagain Arm lay within the homeland of the Dena’ina Athabascan people, who called the Kenai Peninsula Yaghenen, “the good land.” The community of Sunrise was later established near the creek’s mouth, where the valley is flanked by peaks exceeding 4,000 feet (1,200 m). Founded in 1895 and incorporated the following year, Sunrise grew rapidly as a supply center for miners during the Turnagain Arm gold rush of the late 1890s and was briefly among the largest settlements in the sparsely populated District of Alaska (the region was not organized as a U.S. territory until 1912). At its peak in 1898 the town had a summertime population of about 800, with several general stores, saloons, and a restaurant and hotel. Sunrise declined after 1900 as miners moved to richer goldfields elsewhere in Alaska; many buildings later burned, and the last store closed in 1939. The remnants of Sunrise are on both banks of Sixmile Creek and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an archaeological historic district in 1997.

Whitewater enthusiasts have paddled this scenic gorge for decades, with commercial rafting beginning in the 1980s under special-use permits from the Chugach National Forest, which still manages the corridor. Because Sixmile Creek is not regulated by dams, water levels can shift quickly, turning a placid stream into a raging Class V river through its three canyons; both private boaters and commercial clients have died running this river. Today several licensed outfitters, including Chugach Outdoor Center and Flow AK, guide half- and full-day trips through the canyons. The creek remains an important spawning and rearing habitat for four of Alaska’s five Pacific salmon species. Visitors can also walk or cycle a paved path along the East Fork near the Canyon Creek Rest Stop, pan for gold in designated public areas along the Hope Road, and view the gorge from a footbridge and highway overlook, making Sixmile Creek and nearby Hope a popular stop between Anchorage and Seward. Read more here and here. Explore more of Sixmile Creek and Turnagain Arm here: