After heading out of Seattle on Saturday May 2, through
Puget Sound, on Holland America's MS Westerdam cruise ship, we spent a day and
a half "at sea" with the coast of Canada and Alaska in sight. I have
never seen anything like it; an endless landscape of snow covered mountains.
On Monday May 4, we docked at our first Alaskan
port, Juneau.
Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, with a population of 32000 and
approachable only by air & sea. Juneau is a gorgeous town with colourful
buildings and very welcoming people.
I was originally booked on a Whales & Mendenhall Glacier
photo safari but, due to very high winds, the Whales section was cancelled. I
was rather disappointed as I was really looking forward to photographing whales
& Orcas in Alaska.
Instead our tour was changed to a Tongass National Forest &
Mendenhall Glacier walk, which required hiking 5 miles (approx 9.6km)
through a small section of the forest!! The hike was beautiful; the whole area
was previously part of the receding glacier and has an abundance of wildlife,
moss, Spruce trees and glacial streams... Spruce trees are abundant in
Alaska. It was very different to the rainforests in the hinterlands of my
home state.
The Mendenhall Glacier is a glacier about 12 miles (19 km)
long located in Mendenhall Valley, about 12 miles (19 km) from downtown Juneau
in the southeast area of the U.S. state of Alaska. The glacier has also
receded 1.75 miles (2.82 km) since 1958, when Mendenhall Lake was created, and
over 2.5 miles (4 km) since 1500.
It was approximately 6.5 km hike, from where the bus dropped us
off, to the base of the glacier. The landscape was absolutely stunning! We
spent quite some time taking photos and walking around the area before
returning to our bus.
Nugget Falls, also known as Nugget Creek Falls, is a
waterfall downstream of the Nugget Glacier. Formed by the creek from the Nugget
Glacier, the waterfall drops 115m in two tiers of 30m and 85m onto a sandbar in
Mendenhall Lake, which is the freshwater pool at the face of the Mendenhall
Glacier.
After we returned to the township of Juneau, I walked around
the area, taking more photos, and then got on board the almost vertical Mount
Roberts Tramway (gondola) to the top of the mountain to photograph the
spectacular views of Juneau and the Gastineau channel.
I also walked the circuit at the top of Mount Roberts in the snow. By the time I got back to the ship, I was exhausted!
Linking with these memes:
