Hatcher Pass and Indepence Mine, July 10, 2009

We arrived in Wasilla, Alaska on Tuesday, July 7 and found the RV park so nice that we stayed through the weekend. We had very good WiFi so I was able to catch up a little on our blog & our emails.



We decided to drive a side trip on Friday of about 100 miles and go up Hatcher Pass, a 3,888 ft mountain pass. Here are some of the wildflowers on the side of the road.

These are unusual white wildflowers.

Here are some of my favorites, daiseys and some little blue flowers.

This is the Susitna River, a glacier river, which we saw on the way up to the pass.

Here is the Jeep in an alpine area on the way up.

This is our first view of Independence Mine, the buildings in the far background. The foreground buildings are of Hatcher Pass Lodge.

This is our first view of the Independence gold mine buildings.

This shows the remains of the area where they seperate the ore. It is in obvious disrepair.

This is one of two bunk houses where the miners lived. This mine basically operated in the 1930's.

The mountains in the background are where they had several gold mines.

This is the closer view of the structure where they seperated the ore.

This is the owner of the mine's house, restored as a visitor center. The owner was very good to his employees and very generous to any new prospective employee.

Jim is showing where you shovel coal into a coal furnace. There was one similar to this one in the house Jim lived in as a young boy. His did not have the green motor, shown here. the door behind the motor was where they shoveled out the cinders left from the burning.

Here is one of the huge diesel generators which was used for the electricity for the mine buildings. Remember that this is basically wilderness & does not have electricity coming in except for their own generated kind.

This is a hydrolic gun they used when they were allowed to use water pressure for mining. This is no longer allowed in mining.

This photo shows the ore building, when it was in operation. Remember the pile of lumber in the first couple of photos? Well, this is what it looked like before it crumbled.

And here is one relic beside another relic! Ha, Ha, Only Kidding! Jim is standing by the remains of the ore sorting building.

This is a warning sign on the 32 mile dirt road we took from the mine, over the pass, to Willow. I was really happy that we were only in the Jeep! This was an alternate way home.

As we headed up to the pass, we had this view of the mine.

Here we are at the Summit Lake at the top of the pass.

These scenes are of the road descending, as seen from the pass. We're in the middle of nowhere.

Another view descending from the pass.
And another.

This crazy fella was riding his bike up to the pass! I did not even like driving around this corner!

Right after seeing the biker, we came to this hairpin turn!

Her we are traveling down the mountain. I don't know if you can tell how narrow this road is.

This is an old mine with some sort of machinery associated with it in the foreground.