Juneau and Mendenhall Glacier

Juneau, Alaska, August 2019

Here is the first edition of the blog.  I won’t be posting these in any particular order or importance.  As I start getting the feel for a certain place I enjoyed visiting, I will write a post.

We didn’t really take in much of the actual city of Juneau since this was mainly our excursion heavy port on the cruise.   With only ten hours, many at night, we were able to fit in two of their major attractions which were purchased through the Princess Cruise and the vendor booths at the cruise slips.  As you will see, the focus was the Mendenhall Glacier.

Soon after disembarking, we boarded the van to the Temsco Heliport for our trip to the Mendenhall Glacier.  This was a Princess excursion which we paid for months in advance (approx $350 each).   Many excursions didn’t interest us so we put most of our eggs in this one basket.  

Our van driver got us to the heliport quickly and also shared some information about Juneau, especially the challenges that residents face as a city only accessible by sea or air.  The Temsco staff gave us a safety briefing and set us up with spiked boots so we could walk safely on the glacier. 

The 10 to 15 minute ride was absolutely exhilarating and the pilot also provided information which we heard on the headsets. We had a clear and sunny day which made for excellent photos.  The landing was soft as you can expect from a helicopter and were warmly greeted by glacier staff. We were fortunate to have a very engaging and fun college- aged guide.   We had a chance to sample the glacier steam water and I opted to do the glacier push up to drink it. With my best push up form, I dropped my face in the stream a swallowed a clean and cold mouthful of glacier water. Be careful if trying this, as the ice is sharp and can cut your hands if you don’t wear gloves or some other protection. The thirty minutes on the glacier seemed like five minutes, the helicopter ride seemed even shorter!

After a short walk Franklin Street, we purchased a round trip, for $40 each, to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. The tardiness of the bus caused us to rush once we got there, but we were able to get a nice view of the glacier from below this time, as well as Nugget Falls.  We walked the two mile round trip to the base of the falls, which was magnificent, but had to miss the view from the visitor center since we needed to catch the last bus back to downtown.  Tip: give yourself enough time and arrange your own ride. 

Although we were in port until 10 pm, we got back on the ship around 7pm since the evening hours in the downtown area didn’t offer much more than restaurants and shops aimed at tourists.