July 25-26, Palmer

Sunday morning we  left Anchorage under cloudy, rainy, skies (what else is new) and drove up the Glenn Highway to Palmer.  We had heard about a place to camp on the Knik River just out side of town so we went to check it out.  With all of the recent rains, the river was pretty high and probably not the safest place to stay.  We went to Fred Meyer (no over night camping here) and parked the RVs and unhooked one of the cars to go explore options.  

Liz wanted to go to the Musk Ox Farm so we headed that direction.  Liz decided should would join the tour of the farm, but the rest of us decided we would go check out Hatch Pass and look for potential camping sites.  We had been told Hatch Pass was one of the most beautiful drives in all of Alaska.  We didn’t find the perfect spot that would accommodate all four rigs so we returned and picked up Liz and headed over to our old standby...the Moose Lodge.  

          If you have kids or grand kids.  This is a great place.  The park is really nice for kids. 


After getting settled we took a drive out the Old Glenn Highway  with a side trip down the Knik River road trying to catch a glimpse of the Knik Glacier.  It was fun driving on the back roads and seeing some of the very rural county of Palmer.  We saw a glacier but I’m not sure if it was the Knik Glacier.  

We stopped at the Reindeer Farm.  You can pay to pet the reindeer, but we opted to just take pictures.

                          I think this is the Knik Glacier, but this is as close to it as we could get.  You have to go over private property .

                          Lots of little ponds on the way out on Knik Road which is off the Old Glenn Highway. 




Monday, we drove to Willow and caught the Hatch Pass which is a well graded dirt road leading back to Palmer through the Independence Mine.  The road is suppose have beautiful vistas of alpine mountains, maybe so if you can see them through the rain and clouds.  We stopped at Independence Mine, which is a historical park and paid our entrance fee, and then discovered the buildings were only open on weekends. 

                                      Hatch Pass Road.

                          It was pretty windy and cold.  The road was pretty steep in places.  

      Ruins of the old Independence mine

The highlight of the day was stopping at the Shell station on the way back and investigating the advertisement of the availability  30 soft serve flavors .  It turned out there were 30 soft serve flavors  and I tried raspberry chocolate.  Ymmm

After returning from our  excursion to Hatch Pass we went back to the Palmer visitor center to watch the movie about the colonist who came to Palmer in the 1930s as part of the New Deal.  It was an experiment in relocating people from the badly depressed agricultural areas of the US and some say an experiment in socialism of sorts.  The experiment was not entirely successful in that after two years more than 2/3 of the families had returned to the lower 48. Palmer and the Matanuska Valley are very fertile areas today grow many of the crops that supply Alaska.  

            Liz loves to take pictures of flowers.  


Palmer is set in a small valley surrounded by high jagged peaks.  So far, I think it is one of the most beautiful places we have visited in Alaska.

Tomorrow we continue on the Glen Highway and then intersect with the Richardson Highway towards the Denali Highway, near Paxon.  It will be a long day of driving.