Juneau - August 1st - 4th

 Friday – August 1st – Helicopter – turn around, Cruise Ships and Laundry!

Today was our helicopter adventure to the glacier then board an air boat ride and walk on the glacier.  We woke up to partly cloudy and by the time we were supposed to go it was full on raining and cloudy.  We waited about an hour and our pilot, Ryan said let’s go.  We loaded up with another couple and headed up in the helicopter.  (Yes I was scared sh**less!).  We were at about 700 feet above the fjord and the visibility was horrible.  I just said “Dear Lord, if this is my time I am ready.”  - that is how scared I was.  When I told Mike this he said he said the same thing and he was in the front.  About 1 minute later Ryan said – this is a no go and turned us around and landed us.  We are trying again tomorrow.

With shaky nerves and praises that we were safe we headed down to Old Town Juneau (where all the cruise ships docked).  There were 5 in town, but the streets were vacant as it was rainy.  We had lunch at the Alaskan Brewery and then a drink at the Red Dog Saloon – a saloon that has been around for over 80 years.  There was an old timer piano player and it was pretty cool.

I think the saying on the right is my new saying :)

We then headed to Costco to restock our supplies and back to the hotel.  I spent about 2 hours reorganizing all of my stuff and then we hit the laundry.  A nice day and we are trying the helicopter tomorrow!

Saturday, August 2nd – Helicopters, Glacier Walking, Airboat Adventure, Driving to the End of the Road, St. Theres’s Shrine & Whales!

What a day!  We started out with a lazy morning and headed off to Northstar Helicopters to try again.  We got there and suited up again.  Our partners this trip were Newlyweds from Michigan who are now stationed in Vegas.  We boarded the helicopter and hit the glacier.  John our pilot weaved between mountains and landed on a deck (literally a small deck) and got of the helicopter with the blades spinning (eeeek!).

Pictures of the glacier and the landing pad - it is so blue!

We then loaded up with Brian and took an hour long airboat ride around the  terminus of the Taku Glacier.  The Taku Glacier is the largest glacier coming out of the Juneau Ice Field.  The terminus was 6.4 miles in length – the ride was amazing and the glacier event better.  The glacier reminded me of a desert with the different icescapes – everything from towering pillars to rounded ice mounds.  There were tons of seals and fish in the river.  Sorry for all hte photos but it was amazing to us that one single glacier could look so different.

We saw this pile of seals just chilling out on the sandbar. Sorry funny!

Here is a video of a bit of our airboat ride.

We came back and were picked up by a different helicopter and pilot.  Thomas was our second pilot and he was 22 years old!  We were like – “oh my here we go”.  Thomas did a great job and we landed on top of the glacier and the blue is so blue!  The glaciers are blue because it is so compressed that all of the oxygen is pushed out and the blue light is reflected from the sun.  The water tasted just like good old Wisconsin stream water!.  We boarded our chopper and headed down the mountain and landed safely.  It was the scariest thing I have ever done, but one of the most amazing as well.

After our ride we headed up the highway and stopped at Forbidden Peak Brewery.  We had a seltzer and a beer and gobbled down some lunch as it was already 3:00.  We then headed up the highway to the end of the road.  We stopped at the National Monument to St. Theresa.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  We did a labyrinth, went to a Cremorium (It is a grave yard for cremated people).  We hiked out to the chapel, said a couple of prayers and did the Stations of the Cross.  During that time we were greeted by a Hump Back whale blowing his plum – it as so beautiful and remote.

The road running along the water in Junea is about 35 miles long and we did 30 of it.  Some person thought they could build a road to Skagway, but hit a huge mountain and glacier nad had to stop.  There was at least 5 miles at the end that had no houses or any structures – pretty strange.

We drove to the end of the road – not much to show. And headed back to the hotel.  We were exhausted and hit the hay!

Sunday, August 3rd :  Whale Watching, Lighthouse Touring, Mendenhall Glacier, Downtown

We embarked on our last tour on Sunday at 7:30 am.  We got on a boat that holds 49 people, but we were only 22 J  Captain Graham and deck hands Coral and Nick did a great job.  We saw 7 humpback including a momma and a baby.  We also saw some sea lions and sea otters.  Coral has a Marine Biology degree from Souteast Alaska and knew all sorts of info about everything – it was very informative.  Interesting side note - there was a pretty famous band on board with us - Hawthorne Heights. We didn’t know them but I guess they have been around a while and do stadium tours. Seemed like nice peeps :)

My favorite part of watching whales is seeing the water cascade off of their tails.

We were blessed by seeing two different mommas and babies. The upper left and upper right. We had a whale watching boat convention :). Another beautiful glacier

I love the seagull just hanging out on top of the buoy.

We then stopped at a historic lighthouse that has been in operation since the late 30’s.  It is now automated, but we got to see inside of it and walk around the island.  Up until 1967 there were two families that lived on this tiny island with 5 kids.  Because there were five kids the state had to provide a teacher for them – what a crazy adventure those kids had. 

We ended our trip and went back to the hotel for a sandwich and headed off to Mendhall Glacier.  This glacier is right in Jeneau and you can walk pretty close to it.  We also walked up to the Mendhall waterfall, which was fabulous.  We also hiked the Sheep Creek and saw all sorts of pink salmon (also called humpies).  Interesting note about the glacier is that it is expected to have a Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) any time.  A GLOF is caused by rising waters in the lakes up in a glacier until it is to a point where they burst and create a flood down below.  The rangers and park employees were on high alert.

The water fall was not the biggest we saw, but it definitely was the closest we could get to.

We then headed downtown to stop at the DIPAC Macaulay Salmon Hatchery. They have a huge fish ladder. It was amazing. For every wild caught salmon the male and female only produce 2 salmon that survive out of 2,500 eggs. In the hatchery this number is increased to 108. The hatchery fertilizes the eggs and grows them until they are about 5 inches long and then lets them go. All the fish that come back to the hatchery are sold and the proceeds are used to keep the hatchery going. If you zoom in on the sign you can see the different life cycles for wild vs hatchery. Watching the ladder was so cool - I have never seen anything like this before. On the way to the hatchery we came across this big black bear just munching on some salmon.

We ate at the Hanger on the Wharf downtown and it was the best meal out we had since we were in Alaska. We literally are on a wharf over the water with the big cruise ships right at our window.

Monday August 4th:  Mike’s Monday (100+ Fish Day), 20 mile bike ride, dinner & Superma

Today, Mike had the adventure of a lifetime.  He booked a solo fly fishing trip with UnDisclosed Excursions.  His guide was a young man (24) named Ethan.  Ethan picked Mike up at 7:00 am and they headed over the bridge to the other side of Juneau.  They then loaded up into Ethan’s 16’ inflatable river raft with a jet driven motor on it.  They went one hour across the fjords through 6’ waves to Slocum River.  Mike said the waves were 6’ when they went behind the cruise ships.  They then went up the Slocum and hit it.  Everything they caught was catch and release.  He caught Pink Salmon females and males (called Humpies), Dolly Varden, Cuthroat Trout.  Mike said he literally caught a fish on every cast.  He got so tired Ethan took over for a while and gave him some great pointers on fly fishing.  I am excited to learn the new tricks!  I was so happy for him – he loved it!

Ethan from UnDisclosed Excursion and their trusted river raft!

A couple of monster Humpies

A Dolly Vardon and another nice Humpie

As Mike was fishing I loaded up the camper and got ready for our four day Ferry boat ride to Bellingham.  After that I got on my trusty steed and headed the 10 miles to downtown.  I mailed out a few things and did a bit of shopping.  It stated to pour so had a quick lunch and biked back.  Mike returned and we went back downtown to the Hanger on the Wharf for supper.  It was so good we had to go back!  After supper we walked around a bit, stopped at the Devils Club Brewery (so we hit all the breweries in Juneau) and headed off to see Superman.  After Superman we gassed up and went to the ferry dock.  We checked in at 10:45.   Hit bed at 11:00 and woke up at 12:30 to load the camper.

We got into our room around 1:30 and our room is literally over the ventilation system and the props.  It was so noisy and vibrating we couldn’t stop laughing.  There was so much vibrations that the ladder to my bunk was rattling like crazy we had to take it off so I was on the upper bunk stranded – hahahahaa. 

Good Bye Juneau it has been fun :)