Alaska Cruising III (Juneau)

After a strange day in the tiny port town of Ketchikan, we weren't sure what to expect in Juneau. We thought we knew one thing for certain, being the capital, surely it would be larger. To a certain extent, it was most definitely larger, though calling it a city is not even slightly accurate. In Ketchikan we were only there until 2pm, but in Juneau we had until 9pm.

Our plan for the day was to take an early morning helicopter up to the Mendenhall Glacier and land on it. You're only in Alaska once (or in my husband's case, twice) so we wanted to have really unique experiences. We've taken helicopter rides before (into the Grand Canyon for one which was amazing!) but neither one of us had ever actually landed on a glacier. Unfortunately, to have an experience like this through the cruise ship shore excursions would have costed us $800 for two people. Rather than just accepting this, we had to at least look into other options. In Ketchikan, I can understand not having other things to do because it took you less than 5 minutes to walk the entire town, but Juneau got more tourists than just the cruisers. This was absolutely the right thing to do. We were able to find a helicopter company that offered us the same package as the cruise ship but for only $518 instead of $800.

We were supposed to take the first helicopter of the day up to the glacier around 8AM, but they called us (Juneau is in the USA, so I had normal cell phone reception on shore) to say that the fog was too heavy that morning, and they were bumping us to the 11AM flight. It wasn't a big deal. We were in Juneau all day, and the only other plan we had was to do some hiking up Mt. Roberts. The only problem was that it about 7:30 in the morning, and we had about 3 hours to kill. That's when we looked around and saw lots of "discount" tour guides offering rides out to the glacier for cheap. We should have figured that companies got business from cruisers who didn't book excursions through the ship but still wanted fun things to do.  The white school bus in the middle of the picture below offered to take us to and from Mendenhall Glacier for $8.00/each. SOLD!

Our driver and "guide" out to the glacier

The center bus was our transportation out to the glacier

The helicopter ride would take us to the top and land on the glacier, but other than that, we didn't really have any plans to see the glacier from the ground. So, we hopped on the shady white school bus and rode out to the Mendenhall visitor center. 

Who's that?? ;)

As soon as we arrived at the visitor center, the driver told us our return options. We timed our visit accordingly to make sure we were back in time to catch our ride to the heliport. We browsed the visitor center, walked out to the water, walked over to the waterfall and then back to the bus.

The only problem with the 11:00 helicopter flight was that it didn't really give us any time for lunch. So as soon as we got back from the glacier and before we had to meet the helicopter, we quickly bolted back onto the cruise ship and grabbed some items from our room-service continental breakfast. Then on the bus to the heliport, I munched on some fruit loops.

The helicopter ride and glacier walk was amazing and worth every penny, though I'm glad we were able to save $300 by booking it directly through the helicopter company and not through the cruise ship. Before we took off, they gave us these drawstring black booties that fit on over our own shoes. These had thick staples on the bottom of them that stuck out and make it so we didn't slip while walking on the glacial ice.

Helicopter landing on Mendenhall Glacier

When we got to the top of the glacier we immediately noticed a sharp temperature drop. We knew to pack hats and gloves and were now very glad for that. A guide met us right away and explained some interesting facts about the glacier. We then embarked on a short glacier trek seeing deep glacial crevasses and other unique ice formations.

Walking around on the glacier

You can note the difference in the weather from when the day started. In the picture at the top the ground was wet and the sky cloudy. Here, you can see how the fog went away, and the day was clearing up nicely. One of the coolest things on top of the glacier were the rivers. The guide said that there was no water more pure, so we all took our hands out of our warm gloves and dipped them into the icy water for a cool sip. (Have you ever eaten snow? Same taste. Haha!)

Pure glacial river that runs through the middle of the ice

After we got back from the helicopter adventure, we found our way to the Mt. Roberts tram. The tram takes you up to the top of Mt. Roberts where you can then hike around on different trails. Fortunately, no dangerous wildlife threatened our visit and we enjoyed hiking for a couple of hours. The only animals we saw were a wolves in a pack off in the distance. We could only see specks with our naked eyes, but we packed binoculars and my camera with a 12x zoom lens, so we were able to see them a little better with some eye enhancement.

Hiking on the trail at Mt. Roberts

We walked through the town of Juneau a bit after descending the mountain on the tram, and recognized many of the same "Tanzanite International" stores that we saw in Ketchikan. We rolled our eyes and realized that anytime crooks can scam tourists, they'll do it. Although we were in the Juneau port until 9PM that evening, we were pretty tired from a long, active day. We enjoyed a lovely dinner in the dining room, whatever entertainment happened to be playing that night, and then into bed for us.

The last port of call Skagway was the next day. It's a shame that all three ports of call were bing, bang, boom. It would have been nice to have a day in-between Juneau and Skagway instead of two scenic cruising days at the end, but the geography of the region is not the fault of the cruise line.

Read about the end of my trip HERE.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler