Mom and Me Adventure – Juneau

After leaving Ketchikan, the ship sailed north towards Juneau through the Inside Passage. The scenery, forested mountains on both sides, was gorgeous. And because of the long daylight hours we had, we were able to spend hours gazing out. In fact, it was past 10pm and the sun was just about to set. I was able to capture a photo of my first Alaskan sunset.

Early the next morning, I awoke to see the banks of passage so close that it was a wonder our ship had a deep enough channel. I got dressed and sat on the balcony with my camera and binoculars to watch Admiralty Island and then Douglas Island scroll past on our way to Juneau. Just before 10am, our ship came into port and docked.

Mom and I grabbed a quick breakfast on the ship before hustling down the gangway to the pier. For Juneau, I had booked an independent shore excursion that I really hoped my mom would enjoy. So, a quick word about shore excursions… The cruise line will obviously provide options for excursions when you’re in port. It’s an easy, no-stress way to go do something in port and make sure that your transportation is taken care of for you. All you have to do is show up. But those excursions come with a considerable mark-up. And if the cruise line is selling these excursions, they’re going to want to sell as many as they can, meaning that unless you pay extra for a private or semi-private tour, you’re going to be on the big tour busses with a crowd of other people. We’ve already established that I have misanthropic tendencies so being herded along with 60 of my closest friends for a day out did not appeal to me. Plus, as I did research, I discovered that I wanted to do very specific things for two of port stops. And the cruise line didn’t have options for those activities at a price I was willing to pay. Would I book a cruise line shore excursion in some parts of the world? Maybe, because the logistics and infrastructure may not be in place for me to comfortably go at it alone. But in Alaska, you absolutely can book excursions on your own. Heck, you can go to the dock and take a taxi or even a public bus to the major sites nearby. And you can certainly find independent companies that sell tours specifically designed for cruise ship daytrippers.

I booked my two Alaskan shore excursions through the same company, Alaska Shore Tours. They’re kind of a consolidator for various smaller companies so I could book both the Juneau and Skagway excursions together. There are a couple of larger tour consolidators out there, Viator being the most popular right now. Anyway, for me the biggest draw for Alaska Shore Tours was the fact that they are local and give back to conservation efforts in the state. That was important to me even before I got to Alaska and was gobsmacked by the incredible landscape. I like feeling like my tourist dollars are going to the people where I am rather than back to a big monolithic corporation headquartered somewhere distant.

Anyway back to Juneau… Based on my paperwork, Mom and I were to meet a representative from Juneau Tours in front of the Mount Roberts Tramway. If you go to Juneau on a cruise ship, you likely will dock pretty close to this landmark. The Westerdam was literally right in front of it. There are, however, about a thousand other companies’ representatives milling around out there. But they are super friendly and will point you towards the location of your specific tour company. We eventually found the young man holding the clipboard and sign for Juneau Tours. He got us checked in and after a 15-minute wait, our group made its way to our assigned shuttle bus. The bus driver provided a narrated tour as she drove us about a half hour from the cruise ship dock, through downtown Juneau, and then to a private marina where our whale watching boat was waiting. We saw a number of bald eagles along the way.

My mom was super excited about whale watching. When I got married in Maui a number of years ago, it was during the height of humpback season (I picked my wedding date specifically to make sure that we would be able to see whales). Pretty much everyone who came to our wedding ended up going on a whale watching tour. My parents still talked about it years later and my mom had a group of friends “adopt” a whale in her name for a birthday present a number of years ago. So what I’m basically saying is this experience was one I knew that my mom would get excited about… that is, if she didn’t get seasick.

The Juneau Tours boat we were on was a twin-hulled catamaran. These vessels are pretty stable so I was hoping that Mom would be able to enjoy herself without worrying about her breakfast making a return visit. I made her take a Dramamine in the morning, just in case. I needn’t have worried. Our captain was a young woman who seemed to be able to find the smoothest path through the water. Up front, a young local college student from Juneau home for summer break answered questions about the landscapes we were seeing, the animals we should expect to find and a bit about what life is life living in Juneau. Despite his youth, he was very knowledgeable and answered pretty much every question the group of 20 of us threw at him.

We saw our first whale momma and calf about 20 minutes after we left the dock. The captain idled the engines and we all rushed out on the deck. My mom turned to me with huge eyes and an even huger smile. I wish I would have gotten a photo of her expression. It made all the planning worth it in that moment. All in all, we saw three sets of mother whales with a calf apiece, two single whales, a couple of sea lions, and more bald eagles. Not to mention the scenery was phenomenal, snowcapped mountains basically plunging straight down into the sea. And despite my concerns about Juneau’s 62 inches of annual rainfall, we only had to contend with overcast skies.

After two hours on the water, we then boarded a bus that drove us 15 minutes to the Mendenhall Glacier, a 13-mile river of ice that just barely brushes the Mendenhall Lake. The bus dropped us off near the visitor’s center. Mom and I immediately gravitated to the pavilion overlook providing a stunning view of the glacier, the lake, and the surrounding Tongass National Forest. I turned to my mom and asked her how the knees were holding up. She said that she was feeling ok; so we took off down the Photo Point Trail, an easy 1/3 mile (0.5 km) paved trail that leads to a closer view of the glacier. After snapping a ton of photos, I looked over at my mom, “Are you able to tackle another longer trail to the waterfall over there or should I walk you back to the visitor’s center?”. She hesitated for a second but then said, “let’s see a waterfall”. The Nugget Waterfall Trail is a 2-mile roundtrip walk through the forest on a gravel and dirt path. Mom did better than expected and after about 20 minutes, we arrived on a gravel beach where a much bigger waterfall than expected roared down the hillside and into Mendenhall Lake.

It took some maneuvering to try to find a spot to take photos of the falls without a ton of idiots doing the whole “arms over the head, whew” pose or the equally ridiculous “look at me holding back the waterfall” pose or the asinine “synchronized jump but one person can’t get their shit together so there’s multiple retakes to get a single photo with everyone’s feet off the ground” pose. I love Instagram as much as the next person but the notion that every photo you take has to be you in a cheesy pose in front of whatever you’re standing in front of drives me absolutely bonkers. I don’t follow accounts that are selfie-only. Unless you’re Chris Hemsworth, I don’t actually want to see every facial expression you make in a day. And even if you are Chris Hemsworth, I probably don’t think that would sustain my interest for more than a year 🙂 (Actually thinking of it now, I don’t follow Chris Hemsworth on Instagram. I don’t follow any celebrities on Instagram unless you consider Paul Nicklen the wildlife photographer and the Squirrels of UT celebrities… Hmmm.)

The Mendenhall Glacier is retreating, and retreating rapidly. One of the rangers told us that only a decade ago, the glacier was covering portions of the lake itself. Now, the glacier barely kisses the water and in a few years, it may retreat completely away from the lake. I get that glaciers are unpredictable and there are a million nuances that affect their growth or demise. But the fact of the matter is this glacier is shrinking at an alarming rate. And that makes me sad because glaciers are amazing works of art by nature.

Mom and I hiked back to the parking lot and then waited in a cloud of mosquitos for our return ride back to town. Back into Juneau, we got off “downtown” to take a look around before we returned to the ship. Our bus driver mentioned a great fish and chips place and I was anxious to eat something other than the buffet onboard. My mom however decided she wanted chicken… in Juneau, Alaska… a town that is hemmed in on all sides by either mountains or the sea. In fact, Juneau only has 190 total miles of road; the highway reaches only 45 miles north of the town before it stops at a dead end. You literally cannot drive into or out of Juneau. So it’s not like they’re trucking in fresh chicken every day into the town. Seafood abounds, but poultry?

We ended up eating dinner at the Hangar on the Wharf, which provided decent food with a view of the harbor. My mother ended up getting a burger (a burger, seriously) because the only chicken on offer was chicken tenders. I got fish and chips (which weren’t THE fish and chips the driver talked about but were pretty good nonetheless). After our meal, we walked through the kitschy shopping section of town back towards the ship because apparently it’s a law that every cruise ship passenger get accosted by someone from a jewelry shop in each port.

Right before we got back on the Westerdam, my mom looked at me anxiously and asked if I wanted to ride the Mount Roberts Tramway up the mountain. I actually really did but my mom has a pretty strong fear of heights and it was getting pretty cloudy up on top the mountain. I did the responsible daughter thing and declined. I knew she wouldn’t be happy going up with me but I also knew that she wouldn’t just go back on the ship by herself either.

We boarded the Westerdam with plenty of time to spare before our 9:30pm All Aboard call. Our day in Juneau was pretty spectacular between the whale watching and checking out my mom’s first glacier. We had to be up pretty early the next day but we still hung out on the balcony watching our ship pull away from Juneau and continue our journey towards Skagway.