Hatcher Pass – Part 1 of 4 – johnboystravelblog

September 25, 2025

Today I will make a daytrip to Hatcher Pass, northeast of Anchorage. This excursion was recommended to me by one of my fellow Airbnb guests in Anchorage. He told me there would be some great views and that I might see some wildlife. Although I did not see any wildlife it was a beautiful day and it was an enjoyable drive.

Here is a map of the area. The road from Anchorage comes up from the bottom. At Gateway, Hwy 3 goes west towards Wasilla, Willow and, eventually, Denali National Park and Fairbanks. Where the roads meet in Gateway, Hwy 1 continues east towards Palmer, Glennallen and, eventually, Tok.

(Photo credit: Google Maps)

When I got to Wasilla I stopped at their Visitor Center to make sure the Pass was open to traffic. When I had read about it online it said that the road is often closed from late September to July (!) and I was here on September 25. The road I took isn’t shown on the map but if you draw a line from Wasilla to just above Fishhook and then to the red marker that is roughly where the road took me going up. After going over the Pass the dirt (at that point) road went west, roughly through the gap in the mountains, and eventually came out on Hwy 3 at Willow.

The road was paved all the way to the dirt/gravel road which climbed the Pass. If I had stayed on the paved road it would have taken me to the historic Independence Mine site. There are several mines in this area.

Here are some of the things I saw on my way up to the Hatcher Pass access road:

The photo above is of the view back towards the valley I believe I had driven through and is looking at the mountains east of Anchorage.

If you look closely you’ll see a paraglider above the mountains in the upper right of the photo above. I parked at the access road to the Pass and watched as the pilot gradually made his/her way to land across the paved road from where I had stopped.