After breakfast we headed out towards Glennallen, a trip of around 200 miles to the east of where we stayed. Our first stop was Thunderbird Falls. This was a 2 mile hike up and down hill to get to the falls; we also snagged a couple of geocaches on the way!
Thunderbird Falls
In this part of Alaska there is also an abundance of wild roses. Alaska also grows pretty large mosquitoes!
Wild Roses
As we continued east we passed a brightly painted house.
We then started to climb and pass through some mountains. We were lucky to see a moose calf just off the side of the road, but we weren’t able to get a picture. Further on we re-acquainted ourselves with glaciers.
Matanuska Glacier
The temperature climbed to a pleasant 58F as we climbed up to 3000′
View from the Passenger Seat (Warm)
Ahead of us we could see a menacing black cloud hanging over the summit. We soon hit some rain, then sleet, then hail, then snow and within 2 minutes the temperature had dropped down to 34F and there was a good 2″ of hail and snow on the road. This lasted for about 5 minutes, then we started getting back to the clearer weather and the temperature climbed back up to 58F.
View from the Passenger Seat (Cold)
We finally rolled into the “town” of Glennallen, although the use of the word town is quite an exaggeration. We finally found our B&B for the night, they ran out of hotels about 75 miles back.
We took a drive out to find somewhere to have dinner, and finished up at the Princess cruise lines wilderness lodge! To top off our mixed weather, we got a few claps of thunder while we were there!