We hope you enjoy a few of our pictures of Alaska and Washington States. We spent a week in Alaska and a few days in Washington. Margreta worked for five days in Juneau and then we visited Skagway and Glacier Bay. In Washington we went to Friday Harbor on the San Juan Island and then up to Lynden, where Margreta's parents live.
It is possible to get around parts of Juneau with public transportation. We could take the bus to the local micro-brewery. The odd thing about the public transit though is that it drops you off about a mile away from the things that tourists need to visit. You can get by public transportation to within a mile of the Mendenhall Glacier. You can get to about a mile away from the airport and about a mile away from the Alaskan Ferry system. If you don't want to walk the rest of the way you can get around with other transportation services to the sites: there is a shuttle van from the airport to downtown Juneau and there is a blue bus from the ferry to downtown. The airport shuttle was about $12 per person and the blue bus from the ferry was $5 per person. We actually recommend the blue bus to get to meet some interesting local people and find out about some good eating places in the Juneau area. We used the public transit to visit the local brewery.
We visited Mendenhall Glacier courtesy of a state employee who Margreta worked with that week. If you want to visit Juneau in a drier season, you will have to do it in April. Average rainfall in downtown Juneau is about 92 inches.
We also got to see a local fish hatchery. In August some
of the salmon are returning to spawn. They change color as they die and
wash up on the shores. Bears and crabs don't seem to mind eating these
dead fish, but they aren't for human consumption at this point. We did
enjoy a good salmon bake in Juneau at the
Thane Ore House.
Unfortunately we missed a contra dance in the
area.
We took the "Inside Passage" with
the Alaskan Ferry
System from Juneau to
Skagway and back again. While this method of transportation is slower
than flying, it is relaxing and we got to see some other beautiful
mountains and glaciers. On the trip back we saw some whales and eagles. The
ferry system has a representative of the U.S. Forest Service aboard. The
representative will give a talk some time during the trip that is
worthwhile. We learned about how glaciers are formed from one
representative and learned a little about Tlingit culture from another
person.
Skagway's history is filled with colorful stories about the Klondike Gold Rush. We took a train that followed along the White Pass Trail and went up to across the border into Canada. Unfortunately, we only had about a half of a day to visit in Skagway before taking the ferry back to Juneau. We easily could have spent a full day there. Should you be going, don't make advance reservations for the train. The pass is often clouded in. We did get to see some beautiful scenery but we were in the clouds at the pass. If we had more time, we would have gone on a guided tour of the town with a National Park Service representative.
We flew
from Juneau to Gustavus and Glacier Bay. Our travel agent arranged the trip
into Glacier Bay and our stay at
the Country Inn. The first day we went out
on a 32 foot boat whale watching. It was a fairly foggy day (we found out
that we were lucky to get out of Juneau as the airport closed shortly after
we left) which made it difficult to see the humpback whales but we
could hear them and we did see a few.
The second day we took the "Spirit of Adventure" catamaran into Glacier Bay. The biggest advantage of this type of cruise over the bigger ships (like Holland American and Carnival) is the ability to get very close to the glaciers. The boat actually drops off and picks up hikers and kayakers at various points within the Park. A number of people were going to be stranded at Glacier Bay overnight since they couldn't fly to Juneau. The "Spirit of Adventure" boat did a midnight run to Juneau with a number of people and so our captain was a little tired when he took us out on our trip. He did a good job negotiating the way through the many little icebergs that were floating around in the water except for when we were near the very end ... ; then we hit a big piece of iceberg. We found out the next day that the boat wasn't running; it needed repairs.
Glaciers are formed by snowfall in the mountains
exceeding snowmelt. Snowflakes first change to granular snow - round ice
grains - but the accumulated weight soon presses it into solid ice. This
dense compression also causes the blue color that we see as blue light is
what can penetrate the ice. Eventually, gravity causes the ice to move down
the mountain slopes. It is possible to determine the path that the glacier
has traveled by the location of the dark sediment that is moving along with
the ice. At the water's edge, glaciers are known to have massive pieces
of ice break off of the wall and land in the water, the process is called
calving. There is a lot more that we learned about glaciers but we
don't want to bore you. NASA
offers a great virtual tour of Glacier Bay.
We didn't see any bears. We did see puffins and eagles and sea otters and sea lions and whales and porpoises. Others at the Inn where we stayed in Glacier Bay saw a mama bear and her three cubs, but we missed it.
After the drizzle and 60-70 degree temperature of Alaska we got to enjoy some warm, dry weather in Washington state before returning home.