This post will cover our time in Juneau - not much boating/sailing in this one, but lots of exploring in a new town with the family.
7/30/2023
We ended up spending most of the day yesterday exploring downtown Juneau - which thankfully is a very lovely town (we were worried having already committed to spending some time here). Sara and I got some magnets for the boat and ate fish & chips on the boardwalk in downtown. We also went out to dinner at a nice resteraunt in downtown - something that hasn’t necessarily been available for many of the towns we have stopped on during this trip. Last night was our last night in the hotel, so today we will move all of our clean laundry (6 bags of it!) back to the boat and get comfortable on the boat again.
Our first stop of the day was to checkout the Mendenhall Game Reserve - This massive wetlands seemed to be set aside as a wildlife refuge, but then we discovered that this was actually a refuge for birds so that people could hunt them. There were a lot of birds and the place was beautiful - but it’s appeal was a little bit lost on us when we discovered it was a hunting park…
We explored most of downtown yesterday, so today was off to hiking/exploring again. We headed up to the Mendenhall Glacier - which is part of the Tongass National Forest. It seemed to be run like a national park - with park rangers and well-kept trails/visitor center. We did two hikes here - the first was up to the Nuggit Waterfall along the Mendenhall Glacier Lake and the second was a loop called the “Trail of Time” which showcased the transition of the lanscape over time as the glacier has retreated (the glacier has receeded over 2 miles in the last 100 years).
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The Nuggit Waterfall hike was beautiful - but very crowded. Angela decided to try to climb to the top of the waterfall… crazy mama! The Trail of Time was less crowded and it turned out to be a really cool interpretive trail showing the change in the landscape as plant/animal life started to take back over as the glacier retreated.
We have been introducing her to the concept for a while and, after several years of resisting, Sara finally got excited about being a Junior Ranger. She has been talking about her nature powers for quite some time and I think the realization that Junior Rangers must have nature powers finally did it. She did her pledge, got her patch, and asked about a million questions of the rangers about the salmon and how they spawn.
We celebrated our glacier excursion with a trip to the Alaskan Brewing Company. The brewing company has a fun story and I really like their beer. They also have a great location - expecially since it was sunny out. I did a sampler of their more exotic beers while Angela/Sara got us some halibut sliders from the nearby food truck - very fun afternoon.
After the brewery, we went to this playground that Angela spotted from the highway. It was the largest playground I had ever seen - complete with small buildings and slides exiting from every angle.
We went to dinner in downtown at a place called “Twisted Fish”. We found it randomly, but it was reccomended by several locals we talked to later in the week. The fish was really good, but the portions were really small - so we went for ice cream after. Back to the boat after that - we didn’t get back until 8p, well lived day!
7/31/2023
Today, we decided, is our Douglas Island day. Our guidebook recommends learning about the Treadwell Mine - through a historic trail and museum. But first, we went to the Sandpiper Cafe for breakfast. It was well reviewed and did not dissapoint - we both agreed we should go back this week. The Treadwell Mine trail was only a couple of miles long, but packed with good history. We weren’t able to find a museum.
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The Treadwell Mine was expansive but it had been 100 years since the mine closed down and most of it had been burnt or reclaimed by vegetation. This was a huge gold mine - complete with accommodations/entertainment for a small town of miners, including Alaska’s first swimming pool - and would have continued opperation if it weren’t for a series of cave-ins across all of the mine shafts - caused by a large fault that was unknown to the miners. The Juneau Frisbee Golf Club setup a course in the park - which made for an interesting mix of old and new!
After the mine trail, we decided we needed a bit more hiking. We found a trail called the outer loop/rainforest trail on the north side of Douglas Island so we headed there. It was also relativey short, but well reviewed and it sounded like it had good views from the ocean side of the loop.
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The trail went through a large bog - which is apparently somewhat unique in Alaska to this part of Douglass island. The area was heavily dammed by beavers and the trail was flooded in numberous places by their antics. Fortunately we fould a way around the floods and sayed relatively dry.
We were thoroughly exhausted after the day, but we still had chores to do. We headed to Petco to get Oakely a new water-resistent bed and a new leash. Then we headed to Fred Meyer to get some damp-rid and stuff for breakfast. Last, we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the boat for dinner and a movie. We have made it a goal to spend as much time off the boat as possible - getting back to the boat at 7p tonight, we did well.
8/1/2023
We woke up to rain! Lots of it. The forecast calls for rain most of the day - so we headed off to the museum. The Alaska State Heritage Museum is a can’t miss in Juneau so we headed there. The museum was interesting, but it often left you wanting to know more - lots of statements without explaining why or how they knew something. For example - a picture of a shipwreck which declares “steamships were ill suited to Alaska”, but no word of why and what happened to the ship!
The museum had a playplace however and Sara made some new friends and played her little heart out - so we stayed far longer than we would have otherwise. It was almost 2p by the time we finally left, but Oakely was stuck on the boat today so we felt like we needed to rescue her.
We did a hike in the afternoon - there’s a small lake near by the marina and a trail that goes alongside it - the Auke Bay Trail. It turned out to be a lot of fun - it was an interpretive trail with hidden signs along it for kids to find - eleven of them in all and we found every last one!
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After our hike we went into town for dinner - we chose a place called “Hangar on the Wharf”. It turned out to have much better fish than Twisted Fish (the more highly reviewed one). We asked our waiter and he said they may have gotten a new chef. We also found out that 90% of the restaurants in Juneau are owned by the same company - a partnership of 3 ppl. One of them was recently caught embezzeling - so it might be down to two people. He also mentioned that there are lots of staff that will work at two different restaurants, basically make as much money as you can during the summer months since everything closes down during the winter…
8/2/2023
We spent the morning working on boat projects. We defrosted the freezer and cleaned it, cleaned out the bilge, re-routed the shower sump pump into a raw water faucet for the sink, and did some oxycleaning on the running rigging. All of this is stuff we have been meaning to do for a while - so excited we finally got to it. The raw water faucet in the sink was the biggest task - but now we can pull in water from the sea, strain it, and put it into the kitchen sink for washing dishes. Washing dishes has been our biggest water usage and now we only need to use the fresh water to rinse the dishes - ya! It’s a bit hacky, but if we like it then I will make it more permanent when we get back to Seattle.
At a little after 1p, we left for another hike. This time we headed back to the Mendenhall Glacier to hike the west side of the lake up to the glacier. This side is far less built up, only a parking lot and a trail. We could tell when we got there that this was still a tourist destination - there were “adventure” tour groups leading hikes, canoe trips, rafting trips, mountain bike trips, etc. This unfortunately meant that the trail was reasonably crowded, but the trail was also quite strenous - so not to many folks braved it even with a guide. We hiked about 5 miles in all - up the West Glacier Trail and then on the fork for icy caves (the icy caves melted in 2016/2017 in glacier receeding, but the name remains).
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The trail got a bit muddy and Angela turned back - Sara was up for an adventure so we kept going another half mile and, after a bit of a scramble up a small hillside, found a spectacular view of the glacier. We saw two guided groups at the top, both were very proud of Sara for making it up the scramble. One of them offered to take our picture and the other offered to let Sara touch some of the glacier ice - one of them had brought some of it up from the water to show their mother when they got back (hopefully it will last!). The view made it all worthwhile:
The last pic was the climbing portion that Sara did right before the viewpoint - good for her!
We ended up getting back much later than expected - almost 5p - so off to dinner. We let Angela pick since Sara and I were so late - and of course… Mexican! Then off to bed for another day of boat projects and hiking tomorrow!
8/3/2023
Today is our last day in Juneau without plans - tomorrow is our fishing tour and Saturday we drop off Oakely at the doggy day care and start our journey to Gustavos. We still hadn’t done the tramway so we opted to do that this morning - riding up to the top of Mt. Roberts to do some hiking/exploring. The tram ended up being a bit of a let down - they didn’t seem to be well maintained and the glass was yellowing so you couldn’t really see out. Once we got to the top however, there was some good hiking and we ended up doing a fun loop with some decent views.
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The views were mostly of downtown Juneau, but from the top you could also see the surrounding mountains and a few snow fed waterfalls.
Oakley wasn’t allowed on the tram and Angela stayed in town to watch her. After Sara and I did our quick hike, we stopped at the restaurant at the top for some nachos before heading back down. After my glowing recommendation, Angela opted out of the tram trip and we headed back to Alaskan Brewing Company for a beer and some sliders that Angela really liked. We spent a few hours there before heading back to town so Angela/Sara could spend some more time in the library while I took Oakley for a walk to the Whale project - a statue of a humpback whale just outside of town.
Angela has informed me that I often make these posts too long, so I’m going to end here for now. The next post will include our fishing charter out of Juneau and our 2 day trip to Glacier Bay National Park!
