Hatcher's Pass Hiking on the Way Back to Anchorage

We couldn't decide what to do on our last day of this trip, but we'd never been to Hatcher's Pass in the summer, only in winter to ski. So reading up on some hikes, we camped overnight at the bottom at the Gold Mint Trailhead - but did the Reeds Lake hike first off of Archangel Rd.





We didn't get all of the way to the lakes. Two things about this hike - first, we started after it had been raining all day and sometimes pretty hard -- it didn't rain the WHOLE time we were hiking, but everything was so wet and the trail so narrow that we were soaked by the time we got back - well, really within the first 15 minutes or so of this 3 hr. hike. It is a fun hike, and we'll go back again - pretty socked in by fog and mist, so not so many pictures -- the water was gushing down pretty violently -- and by the time we got to a boulder field with the water rushing down just underneath it, we didn't see a way to get Kira across. The ranger told Brian the next day that it is a spot that routinely canines refuse when the water is as high as it is right now.

So we overnighted at the Gold Mint Trailhead and then went up the next morning (yesterday) to Independence Mine and did the relatively short trail to Gold Cord Lake. What a treat though! The main treat for Kira was to find snow again - she's in heaven with snow in July!



You can see the ice still on the lake on the 9th of July!



Sigh . . . and then we came home - to do laundry, clean up and get ready for another RV trip next week - to McCarthy this time! And we spied some more places to hike back at Independence Mine another day - maybe without Kira this time! Independence Mine was a gold mine most active in about the 1930s to 1950s. There is good historical information there and a number of buildings still standing.