Backpacking the Gold Mint Trail to the Mint Hut in Alaska's Hatcher Pass (EPIC views! 😍)

We're currently driving about an hour north of Anchorage to what we hear is an incredible area, Hatcher Pass. Hatcher Pass is located close to both Wasilla and Palmer, Alaska in the Talkeetna Mountains. This area has come highly recommended to us and we're going to spend the next four days exploring as much of it as we can. This drive is so gorgeous. We made it to the Goldman Trailhead which is where our first adventure here will begin. Tomorrow we're going to be backpacking from this trailhead and tonight we're just going to sleep here at the trailhead in our van which costs five dollars per day to park and then we're going to hit the trail bright and early tomorrow morning. Today we are hiking the Goldman Trail to the Mint Hut. It's about 16 to 18 miles round trip with about 3,500 feet of elevation gain. We are three miles into the hike and so far it hasn't been bad at all. It's a steady uphill climb and we're mostly going through a lot of brush and a lot of bushes but you still have views of the insane mountains around. The mountains out here are just so rugged and rocky. We hear that the first five miles of this hike isn't too bad but after mile five things are going to get a little interesting. So we had heard that after mile five the trail kind of just turns into a swamp. You're like basically walking through a river but we're definitely noticing those characteristics before mile five. It's definitely getting a lot more wet on the trail and a lot more muddy. Yep my feet are officially completely soaked and we're not even to the worst part yet. It's getting real out here. Real swampy. Lost my balance trying to dodge the mud. Didn't work out so well. Shoes are completely muddy. There's huge chunks of mud on my feet here. We're about eight miles in so we should have under a mile left until we get to the end but this is the part of the hike that gets really really steep and we think really really rocky. This is steep. My calves are on fire. See the hut. You do? Yeah. Oh wow. Oh my gosh. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We did it. I don't know how much more I could have done. That was tough. I didn't think we were this close. Yes. One of the most iconic features of this hike is the Mint Hut which is this striking red hut here with the most epic mountain backdrop. This hut is maintained by the Mountaineering Club of Alaska and is first come first serve but you have to be a MCA member to stay in it which costs $20 a year. We don't think anybody's in it right now so we're gonna go inside and check it out. Oh hey welcome to the Mint Hut. Let us show you around. This hut is super neat on the inside. It's very very rustic but it has everything you need and more. It has this nice little seating area that could fit quite a few people. There's this cooking area back here and some people have even left some oatmeal, some cooking fuel. There's even some pepper and a french press so this is pretty luxurious. You can make yourself a nice little meal in here. There's also some board games and books so you have entertainment and then I believe upstairs is where most people sleep unless it's really full and I think some people do end up sleeping down here too. Wow there's like sleeping pads and sleeping bags up here. Nice. Oh gosh, I don't like this part. Cool. They also have an outhouse out here but the number one rule is you can only go number two in there and you also need to burn your toilet paper or take it out with you and this is because if you put everything in these barrels they fill up really fast and they actually take these barrels in and out by helicopter and it costs $1,300 for them to come out here and take them out with them. So there's tons of signs inside the hut reminding you of this and my favorite one says number one in the sun, number two in the loo. We wish we could stay in the hut but we're not MCA members so we're gonna scout out a good spot to pitch our tent. Check out this view we have from this campsite. We're pretty sure this is the best view we have ever had from a campsite. It is just amazing. Mountains surrounding us basically 360 degrees. We camped a little bit away from the hut because if any people come we hear that it can get kind of congested over there and we wanted maybe a little bit of seclusion and we're the only ones out here in this area right now and this is normally the time where we would take a nap, rest up a little bit before we make dinner but our soak level is just sky high right now so we're gonna hike up that hill over there. There's a lake at the top there called Moon Lake. It should be less than a mile to get there. This area is really reminding us of the Wind River Range in Wyoming which we backpacked last summer. Just all of these crazy jagged rocky gray peaks and then this meadow kind of tundra between them a little creek running through. It just has a very very similar vibe and we are just so blown away by the scenery out here. Not gonna lie that hike was tough at times not even because of the difficulty of it the terrain was tough and it was kind of a slog at times getting through it but this is insane. This lake isn't even the one we came for. This isn't Moon Lake but it is gorgeous. It has that glacial blue water to it. We thought when we got to the top of this incline that we would be at Moon Lake. We forgot that there was another lake you go by first and we still have to go up in there. Oh my gosh these mountains. We are on cloud not nine not ten we're on cloud eleven. It is we're just running out of adjectives for this place. Oh man we are loving it out here but at the same time we are starving so we're gonna head back to the tent make some dinner. Tonight we are both trying new backpacking meals. The REI in Anchorage had slim pickings when it came to backpacking meals and all of our normal go-to's were not there so we had to branch out a little bit which is good. It's good to try new things and tonight I'm having the chicken teriyaki rice by Peak Refuel I think is the brand. That is much better than I thought it would be. Not gonna lie it doesn't look it doesn't look as good as the photo that's for sure. The green beans are not green they're like kind of roasted looking but the flavor is actually pretty solid. All right I've got the fettuccine alfredo with chicken. I don't think I put enough water in this. It looks like it's you know cooked and hydrated again but it says it's supposed to have a creamy sauce and I don't see much sauce going on in here. I never know how much water to put in. I wish they put fill lines on the inside of these or I guess we could bring a measuring cup but whatever. Uh-oh this might be Adam's first bad food review. It's okay. Okay so a little user error. Maybe I didn't mix it as well as it should be. A lot of the sauce was kind of clumped at the bottom so let me try it with a little bit. That is better. That is better but I still don't know that I'll get it again. Never lets me down. It feels so good to lay down. It has been such a long day. An incredible day but a very long day and we are exhausted so we're gonna hit the hay. A poet knew it. We are so sad to leave this magical place. Some hikers actually continue on from here. They go up this steep scree back there and do this thing called the Bomber Traverse which connects the hike that we did with Reed Lakes which, spoiler alert, we'll be doing in our next video but we hear it's pretty treacherous and we're not up for it this time so we're gonna hike back down the same way we came. No! We had read before we did this hike about some aggressive wasps on the trail and yesterday we did not encounter them but they just attacked me in my shin. I just got stung like three or four times in my shin and I just see them swarming ahead of me like there's no way I can go on this trail right now without getting attacked even more. I've never been stung by a bee or a wasp and they're kind of my biggest fear. That was not fun. I'm trying to find another way to go. It's not looking very promising but yesterday right in this spot right here Adam slid down this like muddy slope and we later learned that he lost his sunglasses. Look what I just found! I found his sunglasses so I guess that's one perk of the wasps getting me is I had to come back this way. Oh man, I am so scared right now. I do not know what to do. I really don't want to get stung again. They seemed very very angry. I'm just glad they didn't get Kona but this hike back down is more eventful than we thought it would be. There's this beautiful pool of water right here and it seems maybe knee deep so I think I'm going to try to cross it and then bushwhack along the side of the river. All right, I'm in this. I'm in this pool of water. It's very nice. It's very blue and clear where it kind of feels good on my wasp sting. I successfully made it through the pool of water. My mom's not gonna like this part of the video. Usually the going back part of our hikes is so straightforward and easy but not today. I am back with Adam and Kona. I safely made it back onto the trail. I ended up going just along the edge of the river. It's a lot more shallow there. Not as rushing. A lot of rocks to step on so I then had to climb up a hill to get back on the trail. Okay, I hope the rest of the trail is less eventful. At least less painful. I felt so helpless because I heard behind me that she got stung and I was like, oh let's get out of here. Just rush so that Kona doesn't get stung or I don't get stung and so I was ahead and she couldn't go through that area so I couldn't do anything and so I got the tripod out to like wave it around because she was going to try to cut through the bushes and to like see where to go so she could see where to go and I just felt bad. I couldn't do anything to help. You helped me up that hill again. I did help at the very end. Thankfully she got through safely. Holy cow that was an adventure. It had a handful of lows at times but also so many highs and the highs definitely outweigh the lows. That was one of the most beautiful places we've ever been and we would definitely go through all those obstacles along the way to experience that beauty again. For sure. It's not an adventure if you're comfortable, right? Although I would totally do without the wasps. I did not need the wasps in my life. But our time here in the Hatcher Pass area isn't quite over yet. We still have two more days here and we have a lot more planned to do. It's not going to be quite as intense but it's going to be just as awesome. Thankfully. Thankfully not as intense. That's the furthest I've ever had to walk back for the camera. Adam's in a fight with a tree. Oh no. It's the tripod. Alaska's ruining me. No place will ever compare. I'm sorry the rest of the U.S.