The weather looked good when I got out of bed, so we decided to go to Hatcher Pass. I had my normal breakfast but took the coffee to go. We departed at 8:17 in the Jeep.

We stopped at 9:30, near the top of Hatcher Pass to photograph two young hoary marmots by the road. We got some decent shots before they headed up the hill into the rock field. We turned our attention to the collared pika in the same rock field, and spent a lot of quality time with one in particular who was gathering food to store up for the winter. It would head out to the edge of the rock field to gather food in the same general area, then return to one of its caches, so it was easy to set up to photograph it where it was gathering or at one of its favorite pausing stops on its way back to its cache. Solid clouds moved in while we were there, but the light levels were still OK. We left there at 10:35 and continued up and over Hatcher Pass.
We stopped at Summit Lake just over Hatcher Pass and photographed a very cooperative Arctic ground squirrel. We left at 12:36.

We stopped for lunch at the Hatcher Pass Lodge around 12:45. The main building is in an A-frame and it has an Alpine skiing theme. When our waitress directed us to take any seat we wanted, she cautioned us that they were running behind. J had nachos and I had a burger. The nachos came out quickly, and we both started in on them. It took quite a while for the burger to arrive, just as we were warned. It didn't matter much because we were seated right by the big window and had a great view back down the valley. It was a nice place to hang out and relax after the morning photography. We left around 1:40.

It started to rain on our way down the valley.

We got back to the RV around 2:15. I downloaded images from today then did a quick edit. J showered and then took a nap. I did some computer work, then showered. When J awoke, she wasn't hungry.

I had dinner of my usual lunch stuff (ham and Swiss sandwich, a banana, and an apple) while I started to do a second round of editing of the images I took today.

D came out around 7:00 and brought a blueberry pie — my favorite. We had some pie and chatted.

D went back in at 10:25. I finished the second round of editing of the images I took today, then went to bed.