Thursday, August 7 - Driving to Hatcher Pass

Copper River Princess Lodge

Up early and down to the dining room at 7:30; I had oatmeal with fresh blueberries and Bob had eggs Benedict.  We followed the hotel trail map and walked about 2 miles through  birch-spruce woods before checking out and driving down to the old town of Copper Center which has a old school, post office and a closed general store.  We wanted to top off our gas tank before crossing between  the Talkeetna and Chugach Mountains on the Glenn Highway, but couldn‘t find any gas station there.  We retraced our path 15 miles north on the Richardson Highway and stopped at the Tazlina Trading Post where we got gas from a pump that had no working dials.  The lady running the trading post and Bob decided on six gallons which we paid for and then explored the store which has absolutely everything one could want to survive in the world from food, clothes, tools, gardening supplies, toiletries, moose and caribou bags (whatever they are), and school supplies. Quite amazing!

In a couple of miles we reached the east-west Glenn Highway and turned west in the direction of Anchorage.  We only had about 150 miles to drive today so we stopped and birded and explored a bit.  We drove a ways through flat land covered with the ubiquitous tall skinny Black Spruce that we’ve seen everywhere.  Eventually the landscape became more rolling and we could see large mountains rising up to the south.

We turned off on several side roads looking for American Three-toed Woodpecker and the Arctic Warbler to no avail.  We saw a lot of beautiful scenery - a huge glacier was spilling out between two mountains - but few birds and no large mammals despite the ubiquitous caution signs!

I was getting hungry so we stopped at a couple of roadhouses, but they had gone out of business; finally I pulled over at the Eureka Lodge, originally a tiny cabin built in 1936, but now a homey coffee shop, where we split a cheeseburger and pasta-veggie soup.

Original 1936 Road House

We stopped at the Matanuska Glacier State Park and walked 20 minutes to an overlook of this glacier which flows for about 27 miles out from the mountains and ends as a 4 mile wide, high, blue, glowing wall of ice!  Until we could see the apparently tiny spruces silhouetted in front of it, we didn’t realize quite how huge it is!

Matanuska Glacier

In Palmer  we saw farming for the first time: plowed fields, horses, sheep, and chickens. This must be where the giant vegetables are grown; We saw a sign listing the champions: 120 lb. rutabaga, 20 lb radish, etc!   We turned off on to Hatcher Pass road and drove from 500’ to about 3000’, well above the tree line and arrived at the Hatcher Pass Lodge about 5 PM. This is a rather unique place, consisting of a main A-frame and eleven small cabins scattered over the tundra.  Our reservation had been lost, but fortunately they had room and we moved into Cabin 4 which has a huge picture window overlooking glaciated mountains in the distance, a chemical toilet and a jug of water!  Quite like camping, but warmer!   We cleaned up, had a rum & coke in our room, and walked back to the main house where the cook whipped us up a delicious roast turkey sandwich and soup with a few beers.  One can have a shower in the main building, which I may investigate tomorrow!  Beautiful views of the setting sun on the green hills outside our room!

Hatcher Pass Lodge