Skagway and Glacier Bay

I figured that Skagway would be pretty easy to write up since it was such a tourist town and that I would lump it with Glacier Bay. But the focus of this post is Glacier Bay, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. Skagway was a nice town, a interesting historic town but the focus was on shopping. The boardwalks were wood and all of the buildings were original wood and in many ways it was a unique look at how towns were formed. But other than a great rock shop off the main strip, it was filled with souvenir shops, jewelry stores, and curio stores. We never got a chance to get away from the tourist section. A nice town but like any other cruise port I've been through.

Skagway

After spending the day shopping in Skagway the boat sailed off toward Glacier Bay. If you ever get a chance to go to Alaska, you need to see Glacier Bay. It was the highlight of my trip. Every single moment of our time there was awe inspiring and picturesque. We sailed between mountains covered with trees and snow, and through waters filled with puffins, sea lions, and whales. I saw more wildlife in Glacier Bay than I saw all the other days combined. This was the ultimate wild experience. Oh yeah and there were glaciers.

The first time you see a glacier you are in awe. And that awe doesn't ever really go away. When we parked the boat outside of Margerie Glacier (see below) I stood on the deck freezing my fingers off and taking picture after picture. The ice formations on the glacier are breathtaking. Each section of the glacier is different and unique, a work of art in ice. The blue was again prevalent although right after this glacier the sun came out and the blue disappeared. The cave like structure at the base of the glacier is just that. The cave had a small waterfall running through it, the fresh water escaping down the mountain and into the ocean.

Margerie Glacier

Another image of Margerie Glacier

After Margerie, we continued up the channel and came to the most amazing glacier I'd seen so far. This is Johns Hopkins Glacier. This is a steady state glacier, meaning that it loses 6 feet of ice a day and adds six feet of ice a day. There are very few steady-state glaciers left in the world and even fewer growing ones. Most glaciers have receded at unprecedented rates in the last hundred years. Someone going to Glacier Bay ten years from now, will see very different glaciers. I feel fortunate to have seen the ones I did. The snowy mountains rising up at the back of Johns Hopkins are Orville and Wilbur, although I'm not sure which is which.

Johns Hopkins Glacier from the front of the boat

As we were sailing away from Johns Hopkins, the naturalist on board called our attention to the side of the boat. Off in the distance (and I mean distance) was a set of three bears. Rather than the three bears of story, these were a mother and her two cubs down at the shore to eat mussels. They were nearly impossible to see with the naked eye but Jeff ended up getting some decent pictures using a tripod and our zoom lens. I've decided that I have to learn how to digiscope for just such an occasion. As we sailed by, the bears hardly noticed us. The whole boat (crew and all) stopped what they were doing to spend some time looking at them. I passed my binoculars to most of the members of the buffet staff so they could get a closer look. It was an incredible moment.

The Three Bears (the lighter colored things, in case you can't tell)

I tried to get photos of the puffins we saw but they were too fast (and far away) for my camera. I managed to get a decent shot of a whale breaching but it is too distant to share. As we sailed out of the Bay I sat on our balcony, huddled into my coat and gloves, and watched the islands slide by. Each seemed completely untouched. And that is one of the images I'll take away from my Alaskan experience. This is a wild place, a state with untouched land that just begs to be explored. This is a state where things are a bit more rustic. Where roads only cover a portion of the state. Where planes are your main mode of conveyance. Where the people and the animals are hardier, mostly because they have to be. Where every view is a postcard. It was a wild and untamed place. And if it wasn't for the weather, I'd happily spend years of my life exploring it.

Image from Glacier Bay itself

Heading out of the Bay

Juneau

Time to head back to the frozen North. And Juneau was not only cool but rainy. As we left the ship after breakfast, the rain started falling. And didn't let up until almost noon. Luckily, we just had to walk downtown. Juneau was our only day with a planned itinerary. I had been told that while Juneau was pretty, it helped to have something organized. I would agree that the city was pretty. Even with the cold rain, the flowers were beautiful and the city was clean and beautiful. But after walking down to the park by the dock, I was ready for our first tour, a historical boat ride.

We had signed up for a steamboat ride around the harbor combined with a history lesson of mining in Juneau. When we arrived at the dock the boat wasn't there yet. Right before our appointment time, we spotted a boat out in the harbor. It was tiny, way too small to be our boat. But it kept coming towards our dock. When it finally pulled up we were shocked, the boat was small, it hardly looked large enough for the eight of us. It reminded me of the boat out of Willie Wonka with its mix of red and brass. We boarded and not only did the boat have room for the eight of us but eight or so more. It was a beautiful teak boat from the turn of the century (2000 to be exact). The trip around the lake was rainy and hard to see out the windows but the history lesson was much more interesting. The amount of gold that was pulled out of the hills around Juneau is staggering. Hundreds of millions of dollars, all taken at a significant cost to life and the environment. At one point one of the mines was so dangerous that at least one person a day was killed. The companies got rich and Juneau developed because of the gold mining trade.

I have no pictures from the boat. It wasn't until we headed to our next scheduled activity that the pictures started. And then I couldn't stop taking them. The second tour was a trip out to a fish hatchery and then a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier. When the bus that was scheduled to take us there was overbooked, we had to stand and wait for a while. But Princess found us our own personal bus and that was much better than being trapped on a bus with hundreds of strangers. The first stop was the salmon hatchery. I'm not sure what I feel about the hatcheries' work but it was certainly an interesting place. Fish return to the same stream they were born in to spawn. The hatchery catches the fish and extracts the eggs and sperm. The fertilized eggs are kept and nurtured until the fish hatch. Once the fish are old enough to set off on their own they are released into an imprint tank where they imprint themselves on the stream. Then they are released to the ocean and after a year or two return to the hatchery to complete the cycle. The hatchery was interesting but I was sad as well to see how humans were trying to improve on the natural process along with watching the fish try to finish their last swim.

The fish ladder that the salmon climb to return to the hatchery

The holding pen where the fish are kept before sorting and extraction

After the hatchery we headed into the wilderness to find a glacier. I don't even have words to describe my feelings the first time we turned a corner and saw Mendenhall Glacier. I didn't expect it to be so large, so accessible, and so beautiful. You can walk within 100 feet of Mendenhall.

The view from the parking lot

We trekked a bit down to the viewing platform and I took far more pictures than I should have. It was just so incredible looking. The blue ice is naturally occurring. If it had been sunny, the ice would have clouded quickly and the blue would have disappeared into white. We were fortunate to see it.

Blue Ice of the Glacier

There was a small trail that headed down from the main viewing area to a waterfall nearby. Even with my ankle I decided to try the hike. It was mostly flat and in twenty minutes I found out how worth it the trip was. The trail lead right to the base of the waterfall. I stood at the bottom watching the water rush over the rocks into the pool right at my feet. The water was cold and silty. I reached down to feel it and could feel the spray from the waterfall. It was one of the most amazing views. And it was an experience I won't forget for a long time.

A standard view from the bus