Juneau

Friday night I left Seattle, flew to Juneau, met Sheila, went to sleep.

Steep Creek

The next morning, we caught a shuttle to the Mendenhall glacier (about 20 minutes out of town.) Although most people were there for the glacier, Sheila insisted that we walk to Steep Creek boardwalk to see if there were any bears around.

There were!

A mother and her cub slowly wandered up the creek leisurely hunting bright-red salmon, which filled the creek as they spawned and died.

Eventually, we decided to see the glacier.

Mendenhall Glacier

It was dramatic. Kayakers (and hardy hikers) could get closer to it, but we hiked out to Nuggets Falls, which was as close as most people get, I suspect.

We had most of the day in Juneau before leaving for Glacier Bay. It was pouring down rain, so we spent some time in the Alaskan State Museum (it has a great modern Tlingit art show.)

When we came out, the rain had let up, so we decided to take the Mt. Roberts tramway to get a view. It was conveniently located in town (right where all the cruise ship passengers disembark.)

The tram ride was a six-minutes VERY STEEP ride. I looked out at the views for about a minute, and spend the rest of the time looking at the floor.

At the top, the weather was much worse, so we watched a short movie about the history of the Tlingit people. After that it cleared up enough for us to walk a half-mile loop which was very scenic (Sheila calls the misty clouds around the mountains “atmospheric”), but wet.

We went in and had lunch, watched another movie about bears, and then headed back down on the tram. (I looked at the floor the whole time again.)

(I don’t remember what building this was, but I liked the front decor.)

We caught a flight to Glacier Bay, settled into our rooms, listened to a ranger talk about the local research, and went to bed.