Alaska: Day One

Sensible things like buying a car, arranging a mobile phone and getting some camping gear had been put on hold before I even got out of bed.

We were going hiking.

Independence Gold Mine and Hatcher's Pass are about 80 minutes drive from Anchorage. We pass snow capped mountains and cross rapidly running creeks and rivers, presumably charged by snow melt. Green; green grass, brush and trees colours in everything else but a few clouds on a blue sky. It's a perfect day for a walk.

Independence Gold Mine is a run down abandoned mine; something absolutely from another era. This is miles away - thematically and literally - from any of the West Australian craters or tunnels I've visited. Plaques detail the lives of miners and muckers in days gone by. While there are certainly some similarities to my own experiences in these sorts of places, it's impossible to ignore that these were the days where working safely meant working somewhere else entirely. The setting is spectacular and the mine eerie in it's dilapidated and collapsing state. The trails here are very well maintained and easy going, it's day trip fodder. A detour. It's a great appetiser.

View from the mine, looking back down the valley.

Hatcher's Pass begins easily, traversing the length of a valley floor we pass beaver dams interspersed by short rapids coinciding with mild ascents. At the valley's end the trail becomes less clear and ascends the walls through a dozen or so switchbacks, each offering a view slightly more spectacular than the last.

Just one of a million million dollar views.

We make the top which marks the beginning of another valley, complete with more beaver dams between short rapids. The promise of a lake at the end is enticing but we're two hours in, it's beyond six in the pm and fiddle-head ferns are a snack food, not a course of dinner. Not that darkness is any real threat... that's still a month or more away.