Tracy Arm Fjord and Juneau

The main reason we splurged on a stateroom with a balcony....Tracy Arm Fjord. We knew that part of our itinerary would be scenic cruising and we liked the idea of not having to fight for balcony space up on the top decks. Boy, oh boy was it worth it!

Tracy Arm Fjord is a little over 30 miles long and only a mile and a half wide, with tall mountains on either side. It is without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things in nature I have ever seen. I was so overwhelmed by it all that I actually found myself tearing up a bit...

We were scheduled to enter the fjord at 6:00 AM. When I awoke to my alarm and peeked out the curtains, I was rewarded with a view of water like glass and a piece of blue ice floating by. Holy wow! I quickly dressed, threw on a hat, jacket and gloves for added warmth...and then headed quietly out onto our balcony with binoculars, camera and extra long lens. I left Bryan sleeping inside figuring that I'd wake him when were were deeper into the fjord and the ice started coming with more regularity.

 First looks at Sawyer Glacier. Do you see it there in the middle of those two mountains?

Getting closer.....

Look at that massive thing! Is that not amazingly cool? We were actually not able to get as close as they can later in the summer...the captain felt that there were still too many big pieces of floating ice and it just wouldn't be safe. So much to my disappointment, we had to turn around and head back out of the fjord at this point. All the same, I was awestruck by the view that we did get. And comforted to realize that Bryan and I had booked an excursion for later in the day that was going to get us up close and personal with Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau.

After Bryan got up, he wanted to get some breakfast but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving and missing a single thing. The sweet man went up to the buffet and brought back plate fulls of various breakfast offerings to our room. And hot chocolate....which was especially appreciated because it was pretty cold out there as I'm sure you can imagine!

A few hours later we arrived in Juneau. Where other excursions got you close to the Mendenhall Glacier....kayaking at the base of it, hiking near it...Bryan booked a helicopter ride to not only fly above it, but actually land on it! We've done a helicopter ride once before, while in Kauai a few years ago. And I unfortunately (and embarrassingly) lost my lunch while up in the air. I was 4 months pregnant at the time which is what I think made all the difference. All the same, I wasn't taking any chances and I downed some motion sickness medicine just to be on the safe side. I also probably worried the pilot slightly by asking where the barf bags were, just in case. But it was all for naught. Smooth flying and all was well.

These pictures do not do the experience justice. Nor can I find adequate words to describe how truly amazing it all was. It was kind of hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I was on top of a glacier!!!

We landed and climbed out of the helicopter with the aid of a glacier guide...some young (very TALL) guy from Utah, actually. He was rather excited to meet some people from home and we laughed a little about the cold complaints from the other people in our group. We Utahns...yeah, we know how to do cold.

Bryan got really nervous when I tried to get an up-close shot of the water draining down deep into the glacier. Heaven forbid I slip and get myself flushed down....what a way to go! He held onto me so he could pull me back if need be....the hole is bigger than it looks.

We were able to explore the glacier for about 30 minutes before the helicopter came back to get us. We drank icy glacier water, found out what makes the ice blue (ice density) and played "see how many mountain goats you can pick out near that waterfall over there...." Mostly we just looked around in jaw-dropping awe.

Our Utah glacier guide offered to take pictures and complimented me on my idea of the two of us straddling a deep crack. When at the last second Bryan dropped down to peek under my legs, he laughed good and hard...said it was probably the best picture he'd ever taken up on the glacier. I think this is my very favorite picture from the whole trip.

 Juneau from the air...

After our glacier experience, we went to a salmon bake. If you like salmon, hard to beat the fresh stuff from Alaska. It started raining while we were there but the whole thing was under a big, extended tent set-up so we stayed plenty dry. We grabbed an umbrella and explored the surrounding wooded area after we were done eating. Pretty waterfall. Great day.

Next: Skagway

Ketchikan
Tracy Arm Fjord and Juneau
Victoria BC and Ship Life

Ketchikan, Alaska

Bryan and I spent this last week aboard the Golden Princess sailing through Alaska's inside passage. This specific cruise has been one we've talked about doing for a couple of years now. To have it finally happen this year worked out rather perfectly because we decided to book it as our 20th wedding anniversary celebration. And yes, our anniversary is actually in July....but late May timing (and price) was better and what's a few months here or there, right?

We left from Seattle on Sunday afternoon. After spending all day Monday at sea, I awoke randomly at 5:30 AM Tuesday morning and stepped out onto my stateroom balcony only to find that we were just pulling into Ketchikan. And wow, what luck! Because it was beyond beautiful. Truly, who could've guessed that one of the highlights of my trip would come from (uncharacteristically) being awake at a ridiculously early hour due to a time change the night before. Because me, purposely getting up at 5:30 AM? Come now, let's not be silly....

Fair warning...I'm going to post a ridiculous amount of pictures here. It was just that gorgeous....

Ketchikan is a town made up of 3 different islands. It's known as "the salmon capitol of the world" and has only a little over 8,000 residents. It's charming and rustic and very colorful, as you can see. Did you know that there are a lot of wooden stairs in Ketchikan as the town makes its way up the hillside....and if a staircase has a certain amount of stairs, it is officially declared a street and given a name? Here's an example.


Before we left home, I had researched out all the things to do in each port we were planning to visit. When we got onboard and went to schedule our excursions, Bryan had different ideas. And I'm actually so glad that he did. Rather than "sit and see" sorts of activities, Bryan wanted to "go and do." So instead of visiting the totem pole park (which in all fairness, I'm sure was very cool) we went canoeing on Harriet Hunt Lake.

It was absolutely beautiful and we even saw a few eagles overhead and perched in trees. Once across the lake we docked and were treated to an early lunch of smoked salmon, clam chowder and hot chocolate...all being cooked over a camp stove amongst the trees. While enjoying our food we wandered around a bit...our guides answering our questions, telling us old local stories and pointing out various plants and trees.

After a little while we canoed back across the lake and found jeeps waiting for us. We'd been split up into groups of four to each jeep, the idea being that we'd all take turns driving. The other couple with us, however, had no desire to drive and were perfectly content to enjoy the view from the back seat. So Bryan got to do all the driving up, over and through all those crazy rough and bumpy old logger trails in the Tongass National Forest. Seeing as he is very into jeeps right now (a jeep is what he is planning to replace his little 12-year old Huyndai Tiburon with sometime in the near future) I think he had a lot of fun.

 We stopped a couple of times for photo ops and to switch drivers. (Which of course, we never did....)

We're from Utah, so we weren't as mind boggled by the towering mountains. We live at the base of a huge mountain range. But even still, the trees here were so much more dense, the moss and greenery so much more, well...green. And despite our familiarity with the grandeur of mountains, I still found myself in awe of the majesty and beauty of it all.

Shortly after we returned from our canoeing/jeep adventure our ship pulled out of Ketchikan to head to the next port. Because we were cruising through the inside passage of Alaska, there was a lot to see, pretty much always but especially leaving port. Bryan and I hung out on our balcony for quite awhile that evening before dinner. And then later that night (because the sun didn't even begin to set until 10:00) we were rewarded with one winner of a sunset!

  Next up....Tracy Arm Fjord and Juneau
Skagway
Victoria BC and Ship Life