After sailing for nearly 2 days, the Norwegian Pearl
arrived in Juneau, Alaska, on Tuesday. As
we were approaching Juneau, we could see some mountains along the coastline.
We also saw some whales!
After the ship docked, we got off the ship and got on a
motorcoach tour bus to go to the Mendenhall Glacier which is about 13 miles
north of Juneau. On the tour bus, we
learned we couldn't go very far because there are only about 42 miles of road
to the north of Juneau and 6 miles to the south. In other words, the only way to get to
Juneau, the state capital of Alaska, is by boat or plane.
Juneau is a small town of about 30,000+ people.
Douglas Island is across from Juneau and is connected by
a bridge.
...and government (since it is the state capital of
Alaska).
As we rode out to Mendenhall Glacier, we could see
marshlands similar to other coastal areas we have seen in New Jersey and Florida. (NJ and FL just don't have the mountains in
the background!)
After a short 20 minute ride,
we arrived Mendenhall Glacier.
We could see little icebergs
that had broken off the glacier and were floating in Mendenhall Lake.
The water was cloudy with
glacial silt and very cold.
The Mendenhall Glacier is about
12 miles long and extends from its source, the Juneau Icefield down to
Mendenhall Lake and is located within the Tongass National Forest. The glacier has retreated about 1.75 miles
since 1958 when Mendenhall Lake was created (per Wikipedia).
There were several short trails
from the Visitor Center but since we only had a couple of hours, the only trail
we hiked was out to Nugget Falls near the edge of the glacier.
As soon as we started our hike,
we came to this sign:
Without bear spray and bear
bells, I started singing and we both started whistling until we caught up with
other people also on the trail.
...and some kind of red berries.
Because of all the rain (we
were in a rainforest), everything was green and little dew drops clung to some of
the foilage.
The mountains were partially
hidden in the clouds so we couldn't see them very well.
But we could hear the
waterfalls and knew we were getting close because we could also see more
icebergs in the lake.
Before reaching the end of the
trail, we went by this boulder field.
The end of the trail curved
around the edge of the lake....
...and stopped at Nugget Falls.
The waterfalls dropped with
such force into the lake that you could feel the spray...
...and see the waves being
produced by the waterfalls plunging into the lake.
Nugget Falls drops 377 feet
into Mendenhall Lake and is fed by Nugget Creek which is fed by Nugget Glacier
(Wikipedia) and is located to the south of Mendenhall Glacier which also breaks
off into Mendenhall Lake. The below
video gives you a pretty good idea of the force of the falls and how both
Nugget Falls and Mendenhall Glacier feed into Mendenhall Lake.
While we were standing there, I
noticed the iceberg that was filled with rocks that would be picked up by the
glacier as it moved and then eventually dropped into the lake.
It rained lightly most of the time but we had our
raincoats so it wasn't that bad. We
walked back to the Visitor Center where we could get a birds-eye view of both
Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls...
...and Mendenhall Lake.
This iceberg looked like a big whale that was getting
ready to eat the other little icebergs.
There was a spotting scope set up in the Visitor Center
aimed at the glacier. I took my first
"digiscope" pictures by putting the lens of the camera on the
eyepiece of the spotting scope.
After taking another last look at Mendenhall Glacier...
...we headed back to the parking area to wait for the
tour bus to pick us up. We added on a "salmon
bake" after we had booked the Mendenhall Glacier tour but had about an
hour or so in between so we went back to the ship for about an hour.
We disembarked again to go wait for the bus to take us to
the Salmon Bake. Unfortunately, the
other couple who was going was late getting there. After waiting about 15 minutes for them to
get there, the bus driver left. We had
just about reached town when he got a
call saying the other couple had arrived so he went back to pick them up. Long story short, we were late getting to the
Salmon Bake and since we were the last tour of the day they were starting to
clean up so we felt a little rushed.
But the salmon and fixins' were very good and we had more
than enough to eat even though we ate it a lot faster than we would have liked.
After we arrived back on ship, this towel dog greeted us
when we arrived back in our room. :)
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