Cruise to Juneau from Skagway--July 29

We had a beautiful day for a cruise to Juneau--Alaska's capitol which can only be reached by plane or boat. It is the 3rd largest city in Alaska. We left at 8am and returned by about 8:30pm. It was a long day but a fun day. The Fjordland, a catamaran, fully glass enclosed except for the very back where we could stand or sit took us there. The water was good. We left from the docks for smaller boats but saw the 3 cruise ships still docked there. The Chilkat Mountain Range was what we were seeing along the way. The Long Fall Waterfall was the longest one on the trip but we saw many others. On Taiya River Point were a bunch of harbor seals hanging themselves out to dry on the rocks. The first glacier was the Rainbow Glacier and it is a hanging glacier followed by the Stevenson Glacier. Yet some more sea lions but these were the Stellar sea lions. Another unnamed falls and unnamed glacier and then we passed this large bunch of rocks in the channel upon which was a octagon lighthouse that is known as the Eldred Rock and Lighthouse. It is the oldest lighthouse still standing in Alaska and it still operates(unmanned). The captain pointed out a gold mining operation that has only been operating for 3 years but are doing very well and also has produced a huge mountain of pilings which is what is left over of the rock after it has been sluiced. Right soon after that someone spotted the humpback whales. The captain followed them for a little while trying to get us some good pictures. We had seen the humpback before and still enjoyed them but when we saw the Orca's everybody went wild. There were a small pod of them so we kept moving around the boat as they moved around. It was wonderful to watch them. None of them did any great leaps but they did small ones. They finally went on when we spotted about 25 small ducks all flying in a line just above the water. They had short wing spans so they were really flapping their wings a lot. Our boat was going about 35 to 40 miles per hour and these little things passed us up and went around in front of us to the other side and kept flying. We were cheering them on. They were surf scoter--a sea duck--cute little things.

We arrived at a spit of land outside Juneau where there was a dock and a bus drove us into Juneau and told us about the area. Southeast Alaska is a temperate rain forest with lots of growth but not a lot of variety. A coastal temperate rainforest must have more than 55" of annual precip. with 10% or more occurring in the summer, cool, frequently overcast summers with midsummer avg. temps. less than 61 degrees, a dormant season caused by low temperatures, infrequent forest fires and be in close proximity to the ocean. Now you know more than you ever wanted to know. We passed a wetlands and the confluence of Eagle River and Mendenhall River(I think) which was at low tide. I think she said that they have the 3rd largest tide like 26'. We stopped at a view point to see the Mendenhall Glacier and it had a field with lots of fireweed in front of it blooming-it was so pretty. We crossed the Mendenhall River into Juneau. She let us off the bus right beside one of the huge cruise ships docked and would pick us up there later. We had all looked at menu's while on board the boat and decided where we were going to eat lunch. I had the best Halibut and chips I've had fixed tempura style--yum. We ate at the Wharf in The Hanger Restaurant and as we were leaving in comes 3 float planes to land right in front of us, unload their passengers and go out again. That was neat to see it up close.

We didn't have but about an hour more so we just wandered around town on our own walking tour but didn't see much but shops. Without a car or more time we hardly could see the museum or other things. That was a disappointment but another time, maybe. Time to go back to the bus but unfortunately, a family of 3 was not there and we had to wait around about another 20 minutes for them which cut us short on time at our next stop. There were people on the bus who were not with our caravan and this was one of them. Oh well.

Our next stop was at the Mendenhall Glacier which is actually located in the Tongass National Forest. John Muir first named this the Auk Glacier for the local Tlingit tribe. It is the most visited of all the glaciers because it is the most accessible of all in the Juneau Icefield. It was formed during the shorter Little Ice Age and is the 5th largest. There is a beautiful and large waterfall there named Nugget Falls that comes out the side of the glacier and fills the pond below it where you also see the ice chunks which have calved off of the glacier. There are also glacial ponds off from it where a large hunk of ice has washed near shore and then stayed and melted the the depression causes a pond to be formed. They also have salmon come up the streams to spawn and they had a fish weir which we could see on one of the streams. It looks like a picket fence across the stream but funnels the fish thru a small area where they have a fish cam so they can count the returning salmon.

Tongass National Forest was designated as such by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 and is over 100 years old. It is 16.9 million acres, the largest national forest in the U.S. It includes 2 national monuments, 13 campgrounds, 19 wilderness areas, 150 cabins and 450 miles of hiking trails and is part of the largest coastal temperate rain forest in the world. It also includes icefields, glaciers, mountains, valleys, estuaries, islands, lakes, caves and 14,000 miles of shoreline. It is home to over 5,000 brown bears and approximately 75,000 people. It surrounds the north end of the Inside Passage a very popular and historic travel route. We watched a short movie in the visitor's center and they had marvelous displays. We headed outside to see the glacier but not with enough time to walk down to the falls and the glacier to see them even more up close but still with a beautiful view and over to see the fish weir and back on the bus to head back to the boat.

We crossed the Mendenhall River again and returned the way we had come. While on the boat we were served very good smoked salmon chowder, a roll and a cookie. Earlier in the day they gave us coffee, tea, or hot chocolate and a muffin and apple juice then again later before lunch an apple( all of which I stashed away because I had eaten b'fast in the coach). Then our tourmaster handed out cheese sticks at some point which I also stashed. Bob didn't like the chowder so I enjoyed both small bowls. On the way over we were on the boat about 3 hrs. because of slowing down for the whales and they way back only took us about 2 because we saw no sea life only eagles.

The sun's rays were coming down into valleys or onto the water and it was gorgeous. We passed the Sapphire Princess and the Royal Princess as they headed out to their next destination. The captain took us a lot closer to the Eldred Lighthouse Rock. It is quite a place. He also took us up close to the Saw Mill Falls-beautiful. We then went into the Haines, Alaska small harbor port to disembark two passengers going there to visit friends for 8 days. The only way in or out of Haines is either boat or plane. Our crew and captain live in Haines also but they took us back to Skagway first. It was a long day but a very enjoyable one and so I say goodnight all.