Matanuska River Park, Palmer: Highbush cranberries are cherry red and good to snack on; tart. Serviceberries are nice and ripe or past their prime (shriveled). Soapberries are ripe. There are still watermelon berries to snack on.
August 5
Swamp land, Big Lake: Tried to pick every kind of berry around. Picked tons of wild raspberries. Also picked quite a few red currants and very ripe watermelon berries (almost too squishy to get.) Picked many perfect trailing black currants from one spot. Picked a few ripe crowberries, cloudberries, and rosehips here and there. Snacked on ripe timberberries. Lowbush cranberries are large and green and highbush are turning red. Huge, interesting mushrooms are everywhere as well as a ton of mourning cloak caterpillars in feeding frenzies.
June 11
Ester Dome, Ester: Highbush cranberry blossoms seem huge and ‘fluffy’ this year. Lots of other wildflowers; bluebell, roses, dogwood etc. flowering.
June 2
Woods, Wasilla: Roses have been blooming around the Valley. Watermelon berries and high and lowbush cranberries are all flowering. Most red currants have small green berries forming, some are still flowering. Raspberry flowers are generally buds. Spruce tips are super good this year so we’ve been eating a lot.
October 6
Hatcher Pass, Fishhook: Picked many blueberries of three types in subalpine and alpine areas, mostly dwarf. All species are very sweet. Many berries have dropped off plants and some berries are squished on the plant. Found subalpine highbush cranberries ready to pick.
September 29
Talkeetna River, Talkeetna: Good highbush cranberries, very tasty.
September 23
Woods, Wasilla: Picked good highbush cranberries. Found a patch of quite a few red currants still very nice, not squished.
September 9
Woods, Ester: Cranberry picked, both lowbush and highbush, both types nice. Everything is quite saturated from rain. Also found good crowberries and strawberry spinach. Red bearberries are past (I found many this time in Sept. before.)
September 6
Hatcher Pass, Willow and Fishhook: Picked berries for last several days in different alpine and subalpine areas. Blueberries of all 3 kinds ready now and some getting really tasty. (In some spots earlier the early blues were ripe while the dwarf blues were completely green.) Crowberries perfect. Alpine highbush cranberry patches red and crispy.
August 28
Talkeetna Lakes, Talkeetna: Picked lots of very nice forest blueberries, at the perfect ripeness level. Also picked a couple bog blueberries here and there. The highbush cranberries were good, and actually there were quite a few nice red currants too.
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