Hiking Adventures Near Palmer, AK

We had a 2 week scheduled reset in the town of Palmer, 45 minutes north of Anchorage, in mid-July. We had figured we might need a major restock and also truck or trailer repairs by then, which we did. Our truck tires had not held up well to the Alaska roads so we got those replaced.

Palmer is in a pretty setting in the agricultural Mat-Su Valley between the Talkeetna and the Chugach Mountains. We thoroughly enjoyed the full hookups at The Springer RV Park after 5 weeks of dry camping on the Kenai Peninsula.

In addition to our Brooks Falls Bear trip out of Anchorage, there were several hikes we wanted to do near Palmer. The popular hiking area around Hatcher Pass normally opens sometime in mid-July. We hiked the spectacular Reed Lakes trail with rock scrambling, waterfalls, and pretty water.

On another day we explored Independence Mine State Park and hiked a couple of short trails. First was the Gold Cord Lake trail.

And next, the April Bowl trail.

Our last hike was the South Fork Valley trail in Chugach State Park. This one also had a lot of rock scrambling and the destination was two different color side-by-side lakes. One lake is from glacier melt and the other is snow melt.