Glaciers & Rainforests

Apparently, I was too tired to post the pictures of our place that I mentioned last night. So, here they are. The building was made in the 80s as a restaurant with a number of different eating areas. Then it became a b&b and then Best Western bought it and made this hotel. 

Here's the room. It's the only one with a breakfast nook and they will bring our breakfast up to us if we like. That seems a little posh to me!

It was supposed to start raining early this morning but held off and we were even teased by a couple of blue patches in the sky. So instead of going into Juneau, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier where we planned to hike. As I noted this morning, the salmon have started running in the creeks and rivers and the bears are all over them. When we got to the park, we had beaten the cruise ship buses so it was pretty deserted. There were some people looking at salmon in a creek where there was supposed to be a bear feeding. One guy had a dog that was barking and it apparently scared the bear away. However, she left her two cubs and they climbed a nearby tree. I'm not sure why the mother would leave her cubs but she did. This is the best I could do as far as pictures go.

By the time we left, the tour buses had arrived and there was a crowd looking at the cub. We felt sorry for him but the rangers weren't making anyone leave.
The creek where the mother was, was filled with large salmon like this one that were in the process of making nests and laying eggs. 

Before the crowds came, we hiked over to the glacier and Nugget Falls. This area was opened up by prospectors during the gold rush and the nearby mountains are named after two of them. This was our first time seeing a glacier and we were amazed at the blue colour of the ice. It was a bit misty but the view was still quite incredible.

There were a number of mini icebergs floating around that had broken off the face of the glacier. They also had the blue tint.

Here are a couple of close ups of some sections of the ice. We were reading that the colour is better on rainy or overcast days so we were in luck!

On the hike back from the glacier, we stopped a few times to look at some of the interesting sites in the forest.

As we were leaving, we saw some people looking into the bushes near the parking lot. Turned out there was a baby porcupine eating leaves nearby. It was very soft looking and I don't think it had quills yet but didn't check!

As we drove out of the park, the promised rain showers started. Our next hike would have to wait and we headed to downtown Juneau. One thing we've learned so far is that towns where cruise ships go look pretty similar. Both Skagway and Juneau had old town parts that were extremely tourist centred. The stores were the same and the merchandise was the same. That's why we are not staying in the tourist areas. Here are some shots of downtown Juneau.
There was a line up to get into the Red Dog Saloon at 11:00! 

This very long staircase seemed to lead to someone's house. Not good if you are carrying luggage!

We did do one very touristy thing while in Juneau. Right down by the docks where the cruise ships empty their passengers, there is a food place called Tracy's Crab Shack. It is definitely a tourist trap kind of place. But, sometimes you just have to try a place out to see what all the hype is about. And we did. The food was good and the sideshow was better. Would we go there another time? No. But we enjoyed our crab lunch and beer today and met some fun people.

Not surprisingly, we found the Juneau quilt shop after lunch. This one was on the second floor of an old building and there was a fly fishing shop right next door so I was occupied too!

This was my bear encounter for the day!

The rain stopped again and the sun came out so we jumped in the RAV and headed off to Douglas Island which is just across a bridge from Juneau. It has only 22 miles of roads and we took one of them to the end to find a rain forest trail. Surprisingly, there is a temperate rain forest in Alaska. I would have thought it was too cold for the type of growth we saw but it obviously isn't. We walked through scenery that reminded us of Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings. The path also ran along the beach in a couple of places. 

We met a woman who told us that this maple leaf look alike is called Devil's Claw and that its berries have medicinal qualities.

This mossy stuff was growing on many of the trees.

These mossy growths were on many of the trees as well.

Seaweed art on the beach.

This is another one of the Jurassic Park plants that I couldn't identify.

On the way back to our place we found a Costco. We were overjoyed to find that they had a wine section! Yellowtail Shiraz, 1.5 litres for $8.69! Need I say more? I knew we couldn't fill the RAV with wine and get back across the border so this was the result.

And finally, when we arrived home after 14 km of hiking and city walking, we didn't really feel like going out for dinner or eating crackers and cheese. Quite a dilemma. We ended up getting room service for the first time ever. We'd seen tons of great reviews for the restaurant in our hotel so thought it was worth a try. So glad we did as the food was excellent. Here's what it looked like in our breakfast nook.

This is seafood fettuccine for Marilyn.

I had their fried chicken which was highly recommended online and it didn't disappoint!

Tomorrow, we're planning on hiking in a couple more remote beach areas where we're told you can sometimes see whales from the beach. And bears. So, we'll see how that goes. 

Whitehorse to Juneau

So, we've just arrived in Juneau after a long day of driving and ferry riding. The clock now says 11:14 and my brain is saying, no, it's 12:14 because we lost another hour. Alaska has its own time zone that is an hour off Pacific time. Then end result will be a shorter than usual blog entry I think. 

We were up quite early this morning so that we could take our time getting to Skagway. At this point we didn't know or had forgotten about the lost hour. Might have slept in a bit if we had remembered. In any case, we made it to a place called Emerald Lake before 8 a.m. This is one of the must see places in the Yukon according to Trip Advisor. If we had slept in, the sun would have been on the lake and the emerald effect would have been better but it was still pretty spectacular. Plus, we met an Aussie couple who were also there and had a nice chat about driving on the wrong side of the road and gas prices.

We drove on a little more and saw a sign pointing to the Carcross Desert. Desert? Yep, there is a lot of sand and not much rain so they have a desert in the Yukon. You learn a lot on road trips! You could see that lots of people had driven all over the dunes, probably having much fun. I thought the RAV could handle a little spin but my co-pilot disagreed.

Then we arrived at the town of Carcross which started up during the gold rush days. It's currently undergoing a lot of rebuilding and renewing. It has many old buildings that are used for touristy things. We had a nice pastry and coffee at one of the places. 

Skipping ahead, and glossing over some great mountain scenery, we are now in Skagway! This is a very touristy town that only has 400 people in the winter! In the warmer months, there are thousands and most are tourism related. The harbour was full of cruise ships when we arrived and the streets were full of tourists. Very full. It's a very pretty town and they are also renewing many old buildings. 

I mentioned that I'm on a mission to try as many local brews as possible on this trip. Well, Marilyn's goal is to visit every quilt shop north of the 50th parallel! We found another one in Skagway and learned that there is one in Juneau that we will be visiting tomorrow. I have to say that they look pretty much the same to me but apparently each on has unique kinds of cloth that quilters need!

We went to the Skagway Brewery for lunch as it was not as touristy as the Red Onion where the servers all dress as Good Time Girls. The local brews, Boom Town Brown and Blue Porter were great. Marilyn had an excellent wild smoked salmon plate and I had a halibut sandwich. 

Now, we're on the ferry. It's called the Malaspina and it's one of the older ships. We'll be on a newer one when we have a sleepover on our way to Prince Rupert. This ship was quite comfortable and the weather was perfect for sitting up on deck and watching the mountains go by. 

There was some excitement when we saw a humpback whale off the starboard, or maybe port bow... or stern. Anyway, the whale surfaced a few times and I managed to get a fin and a tail shot. Not spectacular but, hey, it was still a whale!

Towards the end of the trip, it got very windy and dramatically cooler on deck so we moved inside. I would go out every once in a while to take some photos and was lucky to get this of a partial rainbow. Marilyn actually noticed it while we were inside and I went to check it out. I watched it for 10 minutes or so and it increased in intensity before fading away. We've never seen one quite like this. 

This was the scene as we arrived in Juneau. Heavy, threatening clouds and quite a bit of rain. You can also see the Mendenhall Glacier above the city. We'll be checking that out in the coming days. 

After leaving the ferry, we drove to our hotel which is the Best Western Grandma's Feather Bed. When we got there, it looked like a B&B. I don't stay in B&Bs. I did the research on this place and it is a normal hotel that kind of looks like a B&B. Everyone has their own bathroom. However, the suites, as they are called, are pretty cool. Ours has a whirlpool tub with shower, a tall bed with a quilt if we need it and a little sitting room in front of a window. I'm falling asleep now so here are a few pictures of it. Back tomorrow...