Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

I went up to Hatcher Pass about ten days ago. Jan and Autumn had gone to Anchorage to go shopping, and since the day was picture perfect, I decided to take a trip back up to Hatcher even though I had been there the week before. It was amazing how fast things had changed. When I was there the first time, I went up with Jan and her sister Jill. We drove all the way up to the Independence mine, and there was no sign of snow anywhere. As you can see, that all changed rapidly. I was actually hoping to get some more pictures of the mine. When I was there the first time, the battery on my camera died- go figure. This time the gravel road that goes over to Willow and passes by a lake that I was hoping to fish, was closed. There was also a sign warning of icy roads by the toll area before the mine, so I didn't bother going up. The last thing I need is to go sliding off the road and down a mountain. The bottom picture is of the Little Susitna River. It's clear as a bell and runs really f...

   For the past few weeks my sister-in-law, Jill, has been visiting. She came for a visit once or twice when we lived in Hoonah, so it was nice for her to get to see something totally different this time around. This past Saturday, we drove to Hatcher Pass, about forty-five minutes away. The bottom three pictures are from there. The week before we took about a four hour trip, one way, to Denali National Park.  It was Labor Day weekend, and I was a little leery of all the traffic, but it wasn't too bad. Once inside the park, you can only drive about twenty miles to Savage River, and there really isn't all that much to see. There is an unpaved road beyond that but you have to take a tour bus or some such thing in order to run on that. I'm not sure how far it goes or if you ever get to see the mountain (Denali) once you get to the end. There were several spots along the way while we were still about a hundred miles away where we could pull off and stop, but of course we didn...