Hatcher's Pass

Buck and I went on a hike/berry picking expedition today up in Hatcher Pass (is it Hatcher's Pass, hence the possessive? I don't know). Hatcher Pass is about 13 miles north of Palmer and a bit further south of Willow. There's an old mine there that you can pan gold at, but it's closed this time of the year. We went up a different direction toward a gravel road that leads over a pass to Willow. There was a decent about of snow up high and just enough down low to make me slip and fall about five times or so. I had a couple quart baggies in my Camelbak from a previous hike where I thought there might be berries, so when I saw there were still some blueberries, I pulled those out and started filling them up while Buck played. He got bored playing on his own, though, so I only filled up one quart bag and then a little extra. I picked some as we hiked around.

We went up toward the top of the pass and got into some deeper snow. I wanted to see the view from the top, but it was acting like it was about to start raining (or maybe snowing-it was pretty chilly), so I called it quits. The pictures with the deeper snow are from when we were higher up. Buck enjoyed playing in the snow again, so he'll be happy when winter comes. Well, until I make him wear his booties to keep his feet from getting torn up. LOL! He was splashing through the many little creeks and he still wasn't whining about being cold or acting like it bothered him, so maybe he's toughened up to the cold already.

Anyway, you can click here to open a slide show of the pictures from our hike up to Hatcher's Pass, but here are seven of my favorites (click to make big):

This is Buck's 'hero' pose. LOL!


I like how this one yellow tree really stood out.


Quite a bit of snow.


Blueberries! I got about 8 cups.


Lotsa blueberries.


Purty Fall colors.


Decent valley shot. Lower elevation than the Pass, hence no snow.