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| Juneau, capital of Alaska, USA |
While on a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska, our cruise ship docked in Juneau, Alaska.
During the Gold Rush era, lots of prospectors came to Juneau, but failed to find gold in Alaska and were too embarrassed to return to their home towns, therefore many stayed behind in Juneau.
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| Juneau, a landlock city, no roads in or out of the city. |
A town of 33,000 people, Juneau is a landlock town which means there are no roads in or out of the town. Everything has to be either flown in or sent in by ships.
Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, has the highest concentration of bald eagles as well as black bears.
Driving to the park, we saw bald eagles sitting on top of a lamp post which was their favourite place to sit in this town.
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| Mendenhall Glacier Park Visitor Centre |
We arrived at the Mendenhall Glacier Park Visitor Centre and had a great view of the ice field.
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| Information about the trails at Mendenhall Glacier Park |
There were a number of trails opened on this fine day. We did a 4 hour hike up an Alaskan mountain.
We started on the Trail of Time and hiked around the mountain.
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| A warning sign about bears on the trail where we were hiking. |
Shortly after we started our hike, we came across the sign warning us that we were on a Bear Trail and needed to be cautious.
We did exercise a lot of caution and were more alert to our surrounding for signs of possible bear appearances.
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| View of the Mendenhall Glacier while on our hike |
Mendenahall is one of the few glaciers that are accessible by road year around.
We were stunned by the pristine beauty of the mountains and wilderness.
Instead of being in a freezing cold lifeless landscape as we had imagined, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves hiking in a temperate rain forest.
There were a great variety of interesting plants, trees and rocks covered by thick moss.
We did not expect to see such abundance of shrubs, plants, greenery and colourful flowers in Alaska.
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In fact, hiking on the trails in Mendenhall Park reminded me of our hikes in some tropical rain forest in Panama a few years back.
We made numerous scenic stops, taking pictures and admiring the sight and smell of the tranquil wilderness.
We started hiking on the Trail of Time, an easy hike.
But after a little while, we got lost and were hiking on the East Glacier Trail, a challenging and much longer trail with steps and narrow mountain paths
It was wonderful enjoying such marvelous scenery and hiking on the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier trails with our son.
J. shared our love of nature and outdoor activities.
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| J. confronting a bear dead on! |
At the end of our hike, we spent sometime at the Visitor Centre and looked at the exhibits.
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| We touched the 200 year old glacier ice at the Visitor Centre. |
We learned about glaciers and even touched a piece of 200 year old glacier ice on display!
Besides learning about glaciers during our one day Juneau excursion, we also learned bits of interesting facts about the surrounding area of Juneau.
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| An evening view of Juneau from our cabin |
- on Admiralty Island, there is a bear per square mile!
- Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, and a running mate as a vice president, lived in the governor's mansion for two weeks and then moved away.
We got back to our cruise ship by 5pm.
We had a ping pong game after dinner at the Lido Deck – Deck 9.
We also were able to catch a show put on by the Philippino staff of the Westerdam crew.
We had planned to walk around downtown Juneau but instead we stayed in our room and talked which is rare these days as we live so far apart from each other.
It was lovely spending time with our loved ones!
It was another highly enjoyable day during our Alaskan cruise!
R.T.
Mendenhall Glacier Park
Juneau, Alaska
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