Juneau AK

6/8 – 6/16/2016 – When we boarded the ferry we were greeted by Lizzie and Butch, on-line friends from RV Village, and enjoyed getting acquainted and discussing further Alaskan travel plans.  As we departed Wrangell for Juneau on the Ferry we heard music playing on the upper deck.  We were treated to a dance celebration as native Alaskans played their drums and danced for hours. 

We had two stops on the way to Juneau, in Petersburg and Kate, a 16 hour ride, thankful we rented a room for the night as the ship was booked solid with many Alaskans on the way to Juneau for “Celebration 2016” a biennial four day festival of native Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribal members. 

 

After arriving in Juneau we checked into the Mendenhall Lake Campground, our home for the next seven days and were delighted to be able to see the Mendenhall Glacier just across the lake from our campsite.  

 

 

 

After a short drive to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center we hiked the trails exploring the glacier trails, Nugget Falls and Steep Creek Trail where unfortunately we are a bit early in the season to see the bears feasting on salmon spawning. The Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls was simply spectacular.  Mendenhall which cuts a 13 mile path to the lake, is one of 38 large glaciers that flow form the 1,500 square mile expanse of snow known as the Juneau Icefield. 

 

 

 

We then departed for downtown Juneau which was teaming with cruise ship tourists and locals here for “Celebration 2016” and wandered through the shops and tasted the variety of food from the vendors dockside, yes Alaskan ice cream is very good!  

 

 

Thursday we decided to take a ride north up the remote coast to look for whales, bears and other wildlife and visit some of the coves, beaches and the Shrine of St Therese.  The shrine was absolutely beautiful and the setting was amazing. The site includes a chapel, stations of the cross, several cabins, a retreat lodge, a caretakers house and beautiful gardens right on the water.

 

 

 

 

Didn’t see any bears or other wildlife, but while sitting in a turnout having lunch we were treated to a whale sighting, first we saw the blow and after a while the Orca started to surface, enjoyed watching for a good half hour.  Unfortunately the pictures don’t capture too much, wish you were there.  Of course we saw plenty of eagles and ravens in our travels today, they are everywhere you look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday we decided to spend the day in Juneau and check out “Celebration 2016”.  We enjoyed seeing the dancing, art and crafts of the different tribes.  We also did a walking tour of the city, and even got lost for a bit looking for the car, but spotted a mailman who gave us directions.  The streets here remind us of San Francisco, only steeper, so we got plenty of exercise.  There were several cruise ships in port today and the stores were crowed.

 

 

 

 

 

Govenor's Mansion 

Govenor's Mansion

We did a couple tours over the weekends which were really enjoyable.  Alaskan Brewing Company tour and tasting room left a good taste in our mouth where the “brew crew” generously passed out 6 oz tastings of several great craft beers, personal favorite was the Smoked Porter, dark, smoky and delicious. The brewery opened in 1986 by 28-year-olds Marcy and Geoff Larson was the first brewery in Juneau since Prohibition.   The beers range from Alaskan Amber recipe to alder-smoked malts and Sitka spruce tips, reflecting Juneau’s local brewing history and innovation.

 

Another really great tour was the Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure which was opened in 1998 after four years of rehabilitating a storm damaged stream that runs through their 50 acres of property, once the site of a landslide.  Owners Steve and Cindy Bowhay designed numerous settling ponds throughout the stream to direct water flow and slow the rate of erosion to the hillside. This included adding a series of waterfalls cascading through the Glacier Gardens property, all are uniquely man-made and landscaped to blend and contrast the rainforest with the botanical gardens.  The tour also provides an education of the temperate rainforest and includes a boardwalk viewing platform at 600 ft elevation with a panoramic view Juneau and the valley below.  Words cannot explain the beauty of the grounds, so please let the pictures take you there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mt Roberts Tramway is an aerial tramway located at the cruise docks which carries you up 1800 feet above Juneau and the Gastineau Channel to a nice nature center, raptor center, restaurant, visitor center where they show a great movie about the Tlingit people, and hiking trails where you can climb to the top of Mt Robert, view Mt Juneau and a panoramic view of downtown.  The raptor center is home to Lady Baltimore a non releasable bald eagle that was found shot in 2006, and provides medical care to some 150 sick and injured raptors and other birds annually. 

 

 

 

 

On our last day in Juneau we hiked the Perseverance Trail which is one of the three most historically significant trails in the entire state along with the Chilkoot and Iditarod Trails. The original route, used by natives for goat hunting, fishing and berry picking, was later to become the first road in Alaska after Joe Juneau and Richard Harris found gold in the Silverbow Basin in the 1880's. The road was used to access five major gold mining operations in the Gold Creek Valley including the famous Perseverance mine and the Alaska-Juneau mine, which at one time was one of the largest gold producers in the world, but we couldn’t find any…LOL. We enjoyed the lush green forests between Mt Juneau and Mt Roberts and the many cascading waterfalls hundreds of feet high crashing to the valley floor, and took the Red Mill Trail off the main trail to view the 1/3 of a mile wide, 1,000 foot deep "Glory Hole" where much of the gold was extracted.   The beauty here cannot be described in words.  We will be taking our last ferry ride to Haines AK for the road portion of our Alaskan Adventure, so we may be out of touch for long stretches.