Juneau, a day trip - Alaska 2005     
 

Updated: 11/30/08

On the way out the door, Mary Lou
made this photograph of two eagles
in the tree behind our fifth wheel.

We took the Fjord Express to Juneau. It was a packaged one day trip that included a bus ride to town and the Mendenhall Glacier. We left the dock in Haines at 9:00am and returned 8:30pm.  We only took light windbreaker jackets. The ticket for an adult was $146, children under 12 are $30 less.  Juneau is accessible only by water or air.

The boat is relatively new. It is a water taxi designed 65-foot fast-hulled catamaran. The enclosed inside has comfortable seating and outside a small rear deck.

The captain and passengers have great views.  

It is a sleek looking bow and the rear of each hull houses a 600 horsepower diesel engine.

He already had people onboard from Skagway so, he wasted no time departing Haines. It was a short 'no wake' ride out of the harbor and away we went.

Almost immediately, we had some beautiful sights in spite of the clouds.

           
Green water . . . . . . . . . . Kensington Gold Mine still operating

We also got another look at the glaciers we saw yesterday, this time from the water.

             Do you see that little peek at sunshine?
         Davidson Glacier                             Rainbow Glacier

Along that  way the boat headed for a rocky shore. It was home to lots of sea lions.

           
Some were relaxed ...                        Others were a little noisy ...

Shortly after that, we saw four or five Humpback whales. This one is floating along and then diving.

This photograph is the 'blow' from mom and a baby following behind.

We could only photograph the tail of another. 

The captain decided the tail was a message that they would be down for a long time and he continued toward Juneau.

The boat turned into Auke Bay and docked. From there we boarded a bus into Juneau - 13 miles. The driver performed a 'sit-down' comedy routine about Juneau as he drove. Example, he pointed out the "security" three foot high white picket fence around the governor's home and the front door opening directly to the street. He was pretty good, really. 

He dropped us at a spot in town at 12:30pm and said he would be back at that spot at  3:15pm for us. He encouraged us to be 'on time' and use the 'crosswalks'.

We had lunch in the Hanger Restaurant. We watched float plane take-off and land during lunch. It was busy place. Then, a cruise ship arrive and  s-l-o-w-l-y  approached the dock and stopped plane traffic for a while. (Not the little boat in the photograph, a huge ship on the left out of view.)

We did some shopping in downtown Juneau. The streets are very narrow and have no long straight section - a lot of curves and little traffic circles. According to our bus driver, much of the town is built on the tailings from the early mining operations. 

In one section, they were driving pilings into the ground to keep the mountain from entering town.

In Marine Park, we found this statue dedicated to the Hard Rock Miners who founded the town.

Oh, by the way, you will note everything in wet is town. The driver told us town gets a lot more perception that the Auke Bay area - 40% more. (It is a temperate rain forest)

The bus departed for Mendenhall Glacier 'on-time'. We left our purchases on the bus - with food items on top so the driver did not have to dig through the entire bag. It was raining hard at the glacier area.

The best photographs were made from the elevated Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. Constructed in 1962, it was the first national forest visitor center. 

         
A personal watercraft ...            A harbor seal on the turtles head ...

They had a model of the Juneau Icefield in the exhibit area. The Mendenhall Glacier is one of 38 large glaciers that flow from the 5,000 square mile Juneau Icefield - there are a total of 20,000 glaciers.

Glacier Bears with this tinge of blue coloring are very rare.

We feel the bus part of the tour did not give us enough time for the visitor center exhibits. Of course, if we had our truck and unlimited time, we would have toured the downtown and outskirts more too.

The way it turned out, the captain had left some time for whale watching. So, we left Juneau and headed toward Haines. We were still an hour late getting home - but, it was worth it.

This Orca whale put on a little show for us.

One end of Eldridge Rock has a light house and the other end is home to Harbor seals. If you are interested, the U. S. Coast Guard has it up for sale.

We had a rough, rainy and windy ride home. For some reason the ship off our port side was bouncing lees than we were.

It was a great day and added another Alaska city to our visit to the state. 

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