Palmer, AK Day 2

Thursday, July 27, 2017

The forecast for today was partly cloudy.  We had hopes for sunshine.  We have seen more rain days than sunny days on this trip than we have seen in a long time. We decided we'd go ahead and take the drive to Hatcher Pass.

As you can see, we are driving in the clouds and there is a heavy mist.

The route took us along side the Little Susitna River.

 We stopped in several places along the river. 

 The fact that the rocks were so round and smooth intrigued us.

 Tic got some neat pictures along the way.

 The rock walls are steep right next to the Little Susitna River in some places.

 See the people on the upper left?  They are panning for gold in this public gold mining accessible area.

After leaving Hatcher Pass it was almost lunch time. However we had made contact with some other RVers that were in Palmer.  We called them and met with them.  We visited about an hour and a half. It was fun meeting another full-time couple and learning of their travels. This is their 2nd trip to Alaska. When we left we went home for lunch.

The sun appeared to be breaking through the clouds.  We decided to take the 2-mile round-trip hike to Thunderbird Falls which is on the Eklutna River.

On the trail we kept seeing this large plant with the red berries. We asked a local and they said it was Devil's Club.  It is a very thorny plant.  I researched it on the internet and it even has several medicinal purposes. There is a lot of this plant all round Alaska.

The trees and foliage was thick along the trail.

 We reached the waterfall.  It appeared to have an upper and lower part. It was a nice hike. 

On our way towards Reflections Lake for a second time, we saw a turn for Eklutna Lake and decided to go see what we could see.

Wow what a beautiful lake. Until we got home and looked on the internet we did not realize how big this lake actually is. We are seeing only a small part of the lake.

There was a grassy area to our right.  The grass was long and waving in the breeze.

Shortly after we arrived a young boy spotted this bear.  He was wandering towards us.  There have been many more maulings in Alaska this year so we get bear warnings everywhere we go.  We decided we would leave since the bear was heading towards the trail head that was between us and our car.

Since the clouds seemed to be leaving and it was mostly sunny, we decided to go to Reflections Lake to see if Tic could get some reflection pictures.

This is one part of Reflections Lake. You can see some blue sky now. Yea!

We decided to take the 1 mile loop hike around the lake.

 This viewing tower was in a marshy area on the outer edge of the lake. Even from the top we could not see any creatures, not even birds.  We did not even hear any birds. Guess it was even too hot for birds.

As we continued around the lake, we found this view point. Look at this beautiful reflections on the lake.

 At another view point along the trail, we saw this red necked grebe.

Wow another beautiful reflection picture!

I think the cloud reflections are stunning!

We started seeing these pretty blue damsel flies. The closeup shows they are not solid blue.  They were pretty.

This is my favorite reflection picture Tic got!

The loop trail around Reflections Lake had a viewpoint of the Matanuska River and the bridge where Highway 1 crosses the river.

Thank you Lord for this beautiful day!!