This morning at about 9:00 we pulled into Juneau, after traveling through a passage. Juneau is the capitol of Alaska and it’s the only capitol you can’t drive to. You have to fly or go by water. We all went to the breakfast buffet (great omelettes and fruit) and then we got ready to disembark by about 10:00. The ship “parked” close to town–we had a short 1 mile shuttle bus take us to the main part of town (which is on both sides of the water with a bridge between). There were nice broad boardwalks along the water with lots of pontoon boats coming and going. The airport was on the other side of the waterway.

We did a little homework on the most economical way to get to where we wanted to go here.  The boardwalk had a row of little booths with recruiters for the different expeditions and experiences you could pay for here.  Cheaper than ordering excursions on the ship, but still very expensive.  For example, a ticket to go to the Mendenhall Glacier today cost about $150 on the ship, cost $65 from the booth vendors and we went for $2.00 each way with a local bus.  We were so happy about that.  We got the info from the Visitor’s Info Center.  One recruiting vendor told us, “Don’t go to the Visitor’s Center–they’re just volunteers!”  He did not want us to learn about the local buses.

So we walked to the bus station and paid our $2.00 to get on for a 30 min ride. The only catch was that we’d have to walk 1.5 miles from the bus stop on the other end to the Glacier visitor’s center. We thought we could manage that fine, and we did. The walk was 30-40 minutes on a paved path next to the main road next to the rain forest. We were in the Tongass National Forest. This is a “temperate rain forest.” They say it rains here 222 days/year. Today was misty, which felt just right. We had our sweatshirts and jackets on with hoods.

We got to the glacier at about noon and went first to a covered pavilion view area where we looked across a great lake to the glacier. The lake did not exist before the 1930s.

Then we went to the Visitor’s Center and watched a film there about the area.  Interesting.

Then we walked/hiked to Nugget Falls (about 30 min).  It’s a huge waterfall crashing down the mountain into the lake to the right of the glacier.  There’s a rocky beach area below the falls where the visitors congregated.  The trail was pretty busy on the way there, not so many on the way back (lots of Asian tourists).

At about 2:15 we started our 1.5 mile trek back.  “We are saving money by exercising!” Claire said.

Next we took a tram ride up the very steep mountain behind the town (this is the one we used our $50 vouchers for–and had to buy 2 more tickets).  State of the art gondola/ tram ride zipped up the mountain with spectacular views of the town and bay below us.

There were hiking trails at the top and we spent the rest of our day there, enjoying the nature, scenic views, and the wild feeling here.  You always have to watch out for bears.  We saw an animal rustling in the bushes below us from one of the deck overviews.  Turned out to be a porcupine.  The hiking trail was a big loop through a lot of vegetation.  John and I did about half of it, Claire and Graham went the whole way.  While we waited for them, we sat on a bench in the woods for some time, just feeling the peace of the place, surrounded by huge trees and undergrowth with ferns and flowers and moss growing everywhere.  It was nice to just sit.

Today we ended up with 22,000 steps!  There weren’t many people up on top.  I feel like I could live in a place like this.  I like the natural beauty.  But I wouldn’t like to be surrounded by bears.  They say there’s 1 bear for every 21 people here.  You always have to be careful, you can’t just wander too far into the wild.

We had until 8:00 before we had to be back on the ship. It’s light here until about 10:00 p.m. We wandered through a couple of stores, looking at all the stuff. People around us are all wearing Alaska t-shirts and sweatshirts. I like that Alaska was established in 1959, just like I was!

Back on the ship, we enjoyed a beautiful late evening sunset.