Hatcher Pass, AK

This hike is…. well, it’s *the* hike. It’s the hike that I have decided wins the award of my favorite hike I’ve ever done to-date.

WHAT!! This is huge, I know!

Hiking in Alaska

Pretty much on every vacation, I try to plan at least one hike. And when planning for an Alaska trip in particular, hiking is pretty much required. Alaska is called “the last frontier” for a very good reason – so much of it is untouched! So there are countless great hiking opportunities in the state.

My research for this Alaskan trip was quite extensive, and I spent a lot of time reading up about different hikes, checking out reviews on AllTrails, google-mapping the hikes to see where they are located, and looking at photos of the hikes. I found Hatcher Pass on multiple lists of great hikes to do, and all the photos I ran across it were stunning.

Hatcher Pass

Hatcher Pass is actually not super conveniently located when compared to our Alaska itinerary. It’s about 1.5 hours outside of Anchorage, but I decided that it would be worth the drive to set aside a day to do it.

The hike we chose was the Reed Lakes hike, which is a ~9-mile out-and-back trail that goes up into a mountain pass where a glacial lake rests.

Pro tip: Don’t get lost

Before setting out on a hike, I tend to do a lot of planning: I see how many miles it is and read multiple reviews to see how long it takes people. I probably go above and beyond with preparations, packing extra food and water to make sure we’re truly ready for anything. I knew that this hike would be one of the more strenuous day hikes we’ve done to-date, so I spent even more time than usual prepping. I knew we’d likely be losing cell service at the trailhead, so I downloaded some maps and directions just to be safe.

So we arrive at the spot, pay our $5 park fee, and set off on the trail. The trail is absolutely beautiful, if not a bit strenuous because of a steady incline. But we pause to take pictures, enjoying the beautiful sunny day and fresh, crisp Alaskan air.

The hike was absolutely gorgeous from the beginning. (See the hidden hut on the hill?)

After about 2.5 miles of hiking, we seem to have a hard time following the trail… it’s as if it just came to an unceremonious end. I pull up google maps, look at our GPS location on google, and it looks like we’re still heading in the right direction toward the two lakes that are the destination for the hike, so we keep on, even though the trail is not well-marked.

But eventually, the road completely runs into a dead end at an old mining cave — I think back to my research… I never read anything about a mining cave along this hike! So I go back to my GPS location on google and zoom out a bit, and I realized my mistake: The trail we were on indeed ended at two lakes, but they were the wrong lakes. There were two spokes of trails, both ending at a separate set of twin lakes, but I had led us down the wrong one! We had gone down the wrong spoke of the trail…. uphill…. for 2.5 miles.

It took us 2.5 miles to realize…. we had been hiking on the wrong trail!

My excuse for taking a path 2.5 miles in the wrong direction: this trail was absolutely gorgeous! We never even had a second thought, because who would have guessed that the wrong trail would be this beautiful?

So we turned around and backtracked. As we neared our car, we saw a little Reed Lakes trail entrance that we had missed earlier — the correct spoke. By this time, we had already hiked over 4.5 miles.

We were tired, so we told ourselves, let’s start the Reed Lakes hike. If we get too tired, we can always turn around before reaching the lakes – our research told us that the hike itself would be beautiful, so even if we had to turn around before the end, the views along the way would be worth it.

Back on the trail

Even though our faux trail was gorgeous, the Reed Lakes trail was even more beautiful! It started off flat, walking through the green rolling hills. Even though neither of us has been, we both felt that it looked like the Swiss Alps, or the green hills of the Italian Dolomites.

Finally on the correct trail, we were stunned that it somehow was even more beautiful!

The Reed Lakes trail hike began with some flat hiking in this green mountain pass.

We were tired from hiking 4.5 miles before even starting our “real” hike, but these views restored our energy.

After a few miles, we started to move uphill on the switchbacks. That’s when the views started to get really good. There were beautiful wildflowers on both sides of the trail, and we had unobstructed views of the green rolling hills down below.

At each turn of the switchbacks, we were rewarded with even more beautiful views. Could a place this pretty actually be real?

As we climbed the mountain pass, we kept turning around to see where we’d come from – and were awed by the beauty of Hatcher Pass.

Once we reached the top of the switchbacks, we had our first taste of multiple “false summits” of the day. Has that happened to you when hiking? You hike and hike, fighting your way to the top, hyping yourself up because you can see the top! And then once you reach the summit, you look beyond and see that you weren’t really at the top at all, that even more climbing awaits you. On this hike we had about 5 false summits. In reflection, I’m kind of glad for all the false summits – if not for the promise of being so close to the top, we might have decided to call it quits and turn around. But we kept forging on.

Each time we’d reach “the top”, more of the mountain climb would reveal itself, making us realize we still had more to go.

The lake at the top of the hike, which was our destination/turnaround point of the hike, is formed by glacial runoff. Off from that lake forms a stream, which flows downhill next to the hiking path. As we hiked further and further up, the stream bed became more and more clogged with rocks and boulders, until it was completely covered. We could hear the stream down below, but the boulders were packed in tight, completely hiding it from view. And these boulders were monstrous, some as large as cars! So we had to do some scrambling – carefully inching our way across these boulders, trying not to slip and fall into a crack. Luckily, other hikers had worn a path, so we could follow the boot prints across some of the best routes to get across the boulders.

The stream bed became clogged with rocks, which eventually made way for bigger and bigger boulders. We had to carefully pick our away across these larger-than-life boulders in order to continue on the hike.

Do you see how some of the rocks have a tan/brown tint to them? This is the path worn by other hikers across the rocks – they really helped us know which route would be a good one to take.

Eventually, we successfully crossed the clogged stream, and were rewarded with views of the unobstructed crystal clear water.

We could not believe how clear this water was – and absolutely ice cold. It was definitely coming off of glaciers.

As we worked our way back, we saw some smaller lakes and ponds, but these were not the ultimate destination – more climbing would be necessary to reach the end.

Once we reached the other side of the stream, we had a bit more climbing to do. Just a couple more switchbacks, and we finally, miraculously, made it to the top!! We came up over the last and final ridge and couldn’t believe our eyes. Out in front of us was the most beautiful, hilly field scattered with big boulders. Mountain peaks towered up around us in all directions. At the far side of the field lay the most gorgeous bright green-blue lake: Reed Lake.

We finally made it to Reed Lake!

Finally at the top, we stopped to celebrate, and just enjoy the beautiful scenery around us, for it was so unbelievably beautiful. This was the lower Reed Lake. A bit more of vertical climbing would take you to the second lake, but we skipped it due to our fatigue. Besides, this one alone was beautiful enough for me!

Standing in the field next to Reed Lake, the mountain peaks stretched high up into the wispy clouds above, gave me the feeling that if we climbed just a little bit higher, we might actually reach heaven. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere more beautiful in my life.

The field was surrounded on all sides by towering mountain peaks, each of them reaching up high and touching the clouds up above.

I remember thinking to myself as we stood, looking at this stunning lake in the middle of a remote mountain pass in Alaska, “How lucky are we to be able to witness something this incredible?”

My favorite hike to-date

We have done some pretty incredible hikes in our days of traveling. From hiking down to the powerful Wineglass Bay in Tasmania; visiting a real-life Pinterest photo of Hamilton Preserve in Dripping Springs, TX; seeing rolling green hills juxtaposed against the skyscrapers on Dragon’s Back Trail in Hong Kong; feeling alone on the planet while standing on the white cliffs in Royal National Park in Australia; biking and hiking up and around the most stunning Skradinski Buk Falls in Croatia; having sweeping mountain views all to ourselves in Kangaroo Valley; having the fog clear just for us exactly as we reached the summit at Cape Lookout Trail in Oregon; taking the coastal route from beach to beach in Sydney; hiking up to sulfurous volcanic green lakes at the summit of Mt. Tongariro in New Zealand; being spoiled by seeing 10 stunning waterfalls in a row Silverton, Oregon; hiking alongside stunningly blue waters that we swore should be the ocean at Lake Michigan; and taking a trail past ancient cultural sites at Uluru in the Australian Outback.

So for me to say that this is my favorite hike I’ve ever done… that means something.

This hike was so special because it’s perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Every turn we took, the view from any angle was spectacular. The sun was shining bright, but the crisp Alaskan air kept us cool; the green plains of the valley stretched out as long as the eye could see. Up past the switchbacks, we witnessed boulders bigger than cars that humans had somehow found their way to cross; and the destination of this unearthly green lake, with the backdrop of these towering mountain peaks that reached high up into the clouds… it was almost too much to take in.

And we worked hard for this hike, too. What would normally have been a strenuous 9-mile out-and-back trail, we turned into a 13-mile hike, one of the longest hikes we’ve ever taken. So we worked hard for those views. And one of the things I like most about hiking is that you put one foot in front of the other, but even by moving only a few feet each step, you can travel to unbelievable places – it’s pretty amazing what humans can do, and even more amazing the treasures that our planet earth holds for those of us willing to go seek them out.

❤