Well, we’re half-way through the trip. It’s September 3rd. Hopefully, you’re still reading and enjoying the posts, or at least the pictures. We left McCarthy on the east side of the state and drove west towards Palmer. Wrangell-St. Elias was still in view! See the picture below. Now I’m not sure what mountain that is, but I can tell you that Mount Wrangell is in that direction and it’s a volcano, which I thought was really cool. My next Alaska trip will probably include a flight-seeing tour of Wrangell-St. Elias just so I can get a closer look at this beautiful mountain. For now, we’ll continue with the actual itinerary and discuss Palmer.
Our entire reason for staying in the town of Palmer is because it’s about an hour from Matanuska glacier. However, the tour I had scheduled for ice climbing on day 8 had to cancel and we were left with a free day. For those interested in ice climbing or just a glacier trek book with Nova Alaska. Due to the cancellation, we ended up booking a glacier trek the next day with Glacier tours [WINTER & SUMMER Alaska Glacier Tours ⋆ MATANUSKA GLACIER (glacier-tours.com)].
For day 8, as a last-minute decision we drove to Hatcher Pass and hiked. As far as wildlife, at this point the little mouse below was most we had seen. This also used to be a mine, but now serves as a great spot for hiking and exploring.
I mentioned in a previous post that our dog sledding got cancelled and we rescheduled farther north. This is farther north. Alaska Helicopter Tours [AK Helicopter Tours | The Ultimate Alaskan Experience (alaskahelicoptertours.com)] is fantastic. I highly recommend the splurge of booking this tour. It’s a helicopter ride to Knik Glacier where Dog Camp lies during the summer, but along the way you’ll spot Dall Sheep, Black Bears, and Moose, or what our pilot called “Alaska Bingo”.
48 sled dogs live on Knik Glacier through the summer with trainers helping prepare the dogs for the Iditarod race. All the dogs are owned by a 5-time champion and several of the dogs are winners of the race as well. Fun fact: you can adopt a retired sled dog! Not only did we get to go dog sledding, but we also played with a couple of the puppies, mushed the dog sled ourselves, and learned about the operation. Everything must be flown back down at the end of the summer. The dogs and all of their stuff, the trainers and the insulated little huts that they live in. Everything goes by helicopter. But it’s so worth it for the dog sledding experience!
Best day ever!! Other than the other 13 days in Alaska.
Such as day 9, we finally got to visit Matanuska Glacier. Collect glacier water, jump over a crevasse, crawl inside an ice cave, and have the best time while on this glacier tour. I’ll let the pictures tell you about the rest of the tour.
The Lost Hobbit 
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