First stop Juneau...
The port city of Juneau initially looked small and very isolated, accessible only by sea or air. Our first adventure was a bus ride of about 15 minutes. When we disembarked we took a trail walk along a winding brook where salmon had finally reached their spawning area. Man, you could see hundreds of huge salmon! Then we learned a female brown bear was in the area and go all excited. We didn't see Mama but we did see where she had caught and eaten her share of salmon; but, did see one of her two cubs that had climbed up an Alder tree and gone to sleep. Then at the end of the trail we came upon the first sight that would take our breath...the massive Mendenhall Glacier and lake that formed in from of it. I'll let the pictures tell the story, here.
We learned real quick it rains a lot there, more than 200 inches of precipitation annually...today quickly turned into one of those days of no sunshine, lots of rain and fog robbing us of the thrill we had anticipated having on our initial stop in Alaska.
In spite of the bad weather Carla and I took our scheduled boat trip for whale sighting. We were able to see a young humpback along with it's mother and an escorting male but they refused to accommodate our wishes of dancing upon the whitecapped waters. We were also able to see a large group sea lions resting on a large rocky island. The dominating male of the group towered over the females and their young at more twice their size . Alas, no pictures could be taken because of the heavy rain and fog. You could barely see out the glass enclosed boat we were on. After about 4 hours of this nonsense we returned to the MV Mercury and set sail for points north.
We arrived the next morning at Skagway, the gateway to the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898, greeted by a break in the clouds and sunshine galore. Skagway, a small village with a population of about 850 people, looked more like a tent city housing young college kids serving as guides during the heavy tourist season. This was to be a very busy day for Carla and I. We had scheduled two excursions; a train ride aboard the White Pass & Yukon Narrow Rail that would take us on a 21 mile trek along the old Chilkoot Trail and the meandering seafoam green rapids of the Skagway River, to White Pass. At White Pass we saw the mountain top Lake Bennet that turns into the Yukon River, the gateway to the Klondike goldfields. It is here we briefly enter Bristish Columbia, Canada before our return trip back down the mountain trail traversed a hundred years before by men driven by the call, "There's gold in them there hills!" The trip was absolutely fabulous and should be on your don't miss agenda to Alaska.
Upon our return to Skagway, we hop into a waiting helicopter that would take us on the ride of our lives up and over jagged, snow capped and glacier covered mountains to the Grand Canyon Glacier. I was lucky to get to sit in the copilots seat and took some of the most breathing pictures of the entire trip. After about 30 minutes we landed, yes landed, on the glacier that was more than 500 feet thick. We walked around the glacier for about 30 minutes discovering small streams of melting, cold, cold ice and a waterfall in the middle of where we were standing that fell into a deep creavis of ice flowing more than 500 feet below. We actually were more than a mile from where the glacier started up the sides of the mountain range we had just crossed. Absolutely breathtaking and another must do on this trip of a lifetime. I think we got a little taste of what might have gone through the minds of the astronauts as they stepped on the Moon...an out of this world experience!
Next stop, Hubbard Glacier Bay at daybreak! Could it get any better...
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