Alo-HA, friends, and happy Thursday! This is going to be a very photo heavy post, people. Very heavy. Not only because this segment of our trip was full of some very spectacular shots, but because we’re back on the grid in a big way – because my husband’s going to be working from home, we got some smoking fast internet. Guess I’m out of excuses for not updating my photo portfolio and the graphics on this site 
We’ve done a lot of moves over the past dozen years, but this one is really wearing me out. I think it’s because of the stress involved in downsizing – things that were easy to hide in basements and closets no longer have a place to hide, so we’re having to be responsible and decide whether they stay or go. I’ve got a lot of lessons learned from moving and downsizing to share in later posts, but for now, let’s continue the Alaska trip!
Today’s recap of our Disney Alaska Cruise takes you to Juneau, Alaska. Out of all the places we visited, this is one of the top places on our list to visit again. There were so many amazing activities to do there. Because of time constraints, we just did a couple things, but they were pretty amazing. Let’s start with the big kahuna – our visit to the Mendenhall Glacier!
Mendenhall Glacier Air Tour and Ice Walkabout
The Juneau Ice Field is immense. I won’t even begin to try estimating how big it is. All I know is that it’s spitting off thirty-some-odd glaciers that are carving their way through the mountains still. One of the largest and broadest of these is the Mendenhall Glacier. According to our guides, it’s the unofficial symbol of Juneau, akin to Mount Rainier and Seattle, because you can literally see it crashing down into a huge basin of water at the base of the mountains. So we decided that we were going to have to get up there and take a walk on it.
The weather was actually perfect for glacier viewing when we pulled into Juneau – it was pleasantly warm but there was scattered cloud cover and fog. According to our guides, that gives you the best view of the glacier’s colors – in the sunlight, the blue appears a lot more washed out. I’ll take their word for it, because what we saw was gorgeous!
We were met by representatives from NorthStar Trekking at the dock, and they loaded us up and took us to the Juneau airport. There, we were fitted with our gear, met our guide Liz and several other guides who were going to be hitching up to the glacier with us {added bonus – we were the only ones in our particular time slot, so we had the crew and the helicopter to ourselves!}, and got ready to ice walk.
The pilot was kind enough to give us an aerial tour of Juneau and the surrounding area, and then we headed up to the glacier. We’re at a pretty good distance in the picture above, so you can imagine just how huge it is. We’re still not sure what causes the tracks down the middle of it, but they could be tire tracks…if the tires were 45 meters wide and 200 meters apart. Yeah, the glacier is enormous.
As we came in, we saw numerous waterfalls trailing off from several other higher glaciers. The one pictured above is called Suicide Glacier, because it’s hanging over a huge precipice, about ready to dive down into Suicide Basin. I had to ask about the origin of the name, because we were banking at a pretty steep angle into the basin at the time – but not to worry, it was one of the absolute smoothest helicopter rides I’ve ever been on.
We landed at the guides’ base camp, that big yellow tent you see at the bottom of the ice shelf. That tent looks little in the picture, but it’s actually a 30 person tent. There, we said see-ya to Bill and Grayson, the other guides, and Liz started taking us around the glacier. We stood on frozen ice-melt, explored crevasses, and even drank some super fresh and tasty glacier water right from a glacier stream {from push-up position, because that ice is cold and I didn’t want to lie down on it}!
This last picture, taken as we flew back over the crevasses, is one of my favorites. This one isn’t even edited, but you can see that amazing deep blue of the glacial ice. It looks like something from another world.
Speaking of things that look like they’re from another world, that thing on my hubby’s noggin is his new GoPro camera – I got it for him for the cruise so that he could get video of our adventures, and he was able to capture a lot of this on video! When we get them all edited and spliced together, you may see links to Alaska tour videos popping up!
Even though we spent a couple of hours hiking the glacier, we were disappointed when it was time to leave. However, there was still the rest of Juneau to explore before we had to get back on the ship!
My height-phobic friends will want to skip the next couple of pictures…
Mount Roberts Tramway
The Mount Roberts Tramway goes, as you would expect, from downtown Juneau up to the top of Mount Roberts. We wanted to get a view of the city and the valley and hike a couple of the trails in the upper forest before we got back on the ship, so we headed right for the tramway after returning from the airport.
One of the first things we visited up there was the conservatory, where we saw this tremendous beauty.
This lovely lady’s name is Lady Baltimore. She’s a rescue, brought in by a ranger after some jackass shot her. They were able to repair her beak so that she can tear up her food as before, but she lost her left eye and can’t live outside of captivity now. Instead, she acts as an ambassador of the park. For those who don’t know the story of Lord Baltimore, he’s the one who started the raise-your-pinky-finger thing for tea drinkers among the nobility – and that’s how she eats her food, pinky up. She’s actually really friendly – that picture above is her being chatty and begging for treats from her caretaker, who was standing just beside me when I took the picture.
While bald eagles are officially off the endangered species list, there aren’t a lot of them left and they’re still considered a protected species. While Lady Baltimore herself has a good life as a rescue, she has rejected all potential suitors they’ve brought in to meet her. The staff think, sadly, that she already had a mate and lost him.
After the conservatory, there’s a huge network of trails covering Mount Roberts. You can actually hike up from the base, but since we’d already spent the morning hiking around the glacier, we elected to take the shorter forest loop trail instead. And it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous.
If/when we get to go back to Juneau, we would love to hike more of the trails of Mount Roberts and see more of the town. Our stop here was a short one compared to the other cruise stops, and we only had the better part of six or seven hours on the ground. That’s not nearly enough to see the sights and get a taste for it. So we’re coming back one of these days.
Hope you enjoyed our tour of Juneau, Mount Roberts, and the Mendenhall Glacier, and if you get up there, pay a visit to Liz, Bill, and Grayson at NorthStar Trekking. They’ll take excellent care of you, as they did us, and you’ll come away with an adventure to remember! Until tomorrow, I’m going to try to distract myself from the joy of being online in the comfort of home again and keep putting stuff away. We can see our floors finally, but there are still a few boxes to be attacked.
