As we came into Juneau, it was foggy and the ship was blowing its fog horn every so many minutes. It is an eerie sound for sure. The fog lifted but it remained cloudy with occasional drizzle all day. On our boat trip to look for whales the guide told us we were lucky to have such good weather. If that was good weather none of us want to see bad weather. The consensus is that living in the towns we visited would not be possible.
Juneau is the capital and third larges city in Alaska. It is landlocked. As our bus driver said, the only way to get to Juneau is by boat, by plane, and by birth canal. It is typical of the cities we visited, 1/4 mile wide and miles long. Although, in Juneau, there is a section with lots of homes in a flatter section of town. The glacier flattened that piece of land 1,000 years ago before it receded. In the picture below, the city is to the left. The highway you see is 40 miles long, the longest road on the island.
This a view from Main Street. You can see why people don’t have houses away from the water.
Downtown Juneau is full of beautiful flowers and at least on beautiful woman.
The first stop on our excursion was the Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier is 13.6 miles long located in Mendenhall Valley, about 12 miles (19 km) from downtown Juneau. In the Juneau Empire (the newspaper) the next day they reported that the National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River. Water from “Suicide Basin” will overflow the dam and run under the glacier into the lake. There is a chance of serious flooding. You can read about it here. A day later and we may have not seen the glacier up close.
Glacial ice has a bluish hue.
We did a short hike to a waterfall. It was amazing to see the glacier and waterfall up close.
Cindy, Polly, and Caroline on the hike.
The waterfall with the glacier in the background.
Caroline, Polly, Rick, Scott, and Cindy
On way back to the bus, Caroline took this cool picture.
We wondered what the source of the water is for the waterfall. Below is a satellite photo. The glacier in the upper left; the waterfall is just left of center. The water source appears to be just snow melt from the mountains.
We boarded a boat and cruised out to a lodge where we were treated to a wonder salmon dinner.
After dinner we boarded the boat again and went whale hunting. As were cruising we saw eagles and some sea lions.
The captain of the boat found Sasha (the whales are known by their fluke prints). They know Sasha is a female because she brought a “child" with her to Alaska. Sasha is rather famous. When she was young she was trapped in a fisherman’s net. NOAA personnel were able to cut the net off and save her life But the net left scars on her body. Strangely enough the net imprinted the letters A and K (the abbreviation for the state of Alaska) on her fluke. Sasha put on a show for us surfacing every few minutes and, after a few breaths, taking a deep dive showing us her fluke. In the photos I took, we never got to see her fluke from the right angle to see the A and K. The first photo is from a site that catalogs Juneau whale flukes. The last two were take by me (Chuck).
See the A and K on her the left fluke.
This is from a different dive. Notice the barnacles on the left fluke.
All agreed it was a good excursion.