2nd Time Around: Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Straits and Ketchikan

On our southbound cruise we stopped at the same ports as our northbound cruise. However, we chose to do different shore excursions so we would like to share a few of the things we did on our return trip. July 16th we departed from Resurrection Bay in Seward heading for Hubbard Glacier, the Millenium feels like home since this is our 3rd sailing on her.

July 17th Hubbard Glacier was bright and the area around it was sunny. Very active but not the large pieces we saw on our northbound trip. Didn't get quite as close this time but it is still a very impressive site. What is most amazing are the sounds that the glacier makes as it is breaking apart - reminds you of a thunder storm. Later this evening as we relaxed in our room saw a pod of Orca heading north from our window - what an amazing site.

July 18th Juneau -went on a whale watch with Orca Enterprises in Auke Bay near Admirality Island. Saw 10 humpbacks including a baby playing on top and an adult breaching several times.

When we got back from the whale watch, we took a shuttle back to Mendenhall Glacier. Once at Mendenhall we took a hike to Nugget Falls. Huge chunks had fallen off the glacier from our last visit and it was a deep, deep blue in spots.

On our return shuttle we stopped to see hundreds of salmon (5-7 lbs) swimming up a fresh water creek. There were eagles everywhere just waiting to scoop them up for a tasty snack.

July 19th Skagway - beautiful day. We took a bus and then train up the White Pass into Carcross, Yukon Territory - followed the trail of the gold rush.

Unbelievable mountain views, lakes, rivers. Stopped for lunch at Caribou Crossing near Carcoss.

Train back was amazing - bridges, sheer cliffs, etc. Bridal Veil Falls was spectacular. Highly recommend this excursion. Lots of gold rush history - worth the price.

July 20th sailed the Inside Passage to Icy Strait. Snowy mountains. Hiked around the area. Would recommend you do some sort of excursion here - zip line or a whale watch. Saw porpoise and humpbacks as we departed the area.

July 21st Ketchikan - great place. Went on the Misty Fjords excursion. 3000 ft cliffs, the name says it all - very beautiful. Rain and mists are customary here but it just adds to the beauty. (Ketchikan is the fourth wettest city in the WORLD).

Saw a large momma brown bear with her 3 cubs on one of the islands. Watched them play for about 20 minutes.

Saw eagles and tons of harbour seals. Salmon have not yet made it to this area, but tons of them in the Inside Passage. This is our last night in Alaska.

There may be a return trip in our future.

July 22nd was a sea day. All day was in the Canadian Inside Passage. It was a beautiful sunny day, we just lazed around on deck watching the mountain scenery on both sides of the ship.

Alyeska to Fairbanks and back to Seward

July 10th we left Alyeska in the morning via motorcoach for the beautiful, scenic drive to Anchorage. Anchorage is a city of 300,000 - the largest in Alaska. Stopped at a local market/flea market in downtown (held weekly on Saturdays - rain or shine) for lunch. Walked around the market and downtown area for about an hour before again boarding the motorcoach for the

continuation of our journey to Denali. Can't say enough about how beautiful the drive was to Denali. Arrived the evening of the 10th in Denali where we spent two nights at the Grande Denali Lodge.

The afernon of July 12th we departed Denali via the scenic Alaska Railroad to Fairbanks. Great views, excellent dinner. Arrived that evening in Fairbanks where we stayed for two nights at the Pike's Waterfront Lodge. Although we arrived around 9 pm, sunset was not until 12:30 pm so we had a very enjoyable evening.

July 13th we connected with Celebrity cruises at Pike's for our southbound journey.

The morning of July 14th we departed Fairbanks via motorcoach. First we stopped at the El Dorado Gold Mine where we had an opportunity to pan for gold. What an exciting experience that was. Between us we got only about $54 dollars worth of gold - what back breaking, hard work.

We also had an opportunity on our way to lunch in Fairbanks to stop by and see the Alaska pipeline, we couldn't resist this picture of us holding it up :).

As I said we had lunch in Fairbanks which has a population of about 100,000. From Fairbanks we continued back to Denali where we stayed at the McKinley Village Lodge for 2 nights.

The morning of July 16th we boarded the motorcoach for the continuation of our trip back to Seward so that we could board the Celebrity Millenium for our southbound cruise. Stopped again in Anchorage for lunch. This time had an opportunity to spend a couple of hours wandering around.

The drive from Denali to Seward is considered once of the 10 best in North America. Although it rained, it was spectacular. Kenai Mountains on one side, Chugach on the other - both ranges were snowcapped. Alaska has hugh variations in their tides, which occur several times per day. Alaska is twice the size of Texas at high tide but 3 times the size at low tide. The weather cleared the closer we got to Seward.

We boarded the Millenium around 5:30 pm. We departed Seward around 9:00 pm for the Hubbard Glacier.

The various tour guides and drivers we had on the motorcoaches and train are real nomads. They live in Alaska from April/May through September. Some then head back to the "lower 48" (as they refer to us) to work in Colorado at the ski lodges or other various locations. Most of them stop to visit family from wherever they are from. Some of them go abroad to travel, India and Thailand were some of the places they were headed for. As a whole, they all love Alaska and were inspired after their first visit to go there to work during the summers.

Denali National Park

Denali - what an amazing, fantastic place. Everyone needs to visit it once.

Traveled July 10th arriving in the evening at the Grand Denali Lodge outside of Denali National Park. Excellent views of the mountains from the hotel.

July 11th got up early for the 12 hour Kantishina Wilderness Tour 90 miles into the park. This is as far as you can go. Denali is a 7 million acre park and the 90 miles is half way through. Our guide was a Danish woman named Gitte. She lived for 18 years in the Alaskan bush 50 miles from the nearest Eskimo village.

We saw moose (male, female and calves), golden Eagles, Caribou, snowshoe hare and a red fox. Absolutely spectacular mountain scenery. Too cloudy and rainy to see Mount McKinley. We had 50 degree temperatures with 20 mile an hour winds all day.

July 12th back to the park in the morning. This time we were able to see Mount McKinley from 70 miles away very clearly. There wasn't a cloud near it and they tell us there is a 10% chance of that happening. We saw more moose and a few small animals. Had a talk by an Athabascan Indian woman and all in all it was a beautiful sunny day. Just the opposite of the day before.

That afternoon we left on the Alaskan Railroad for Fairbanks (spent two days at Pike's Lodge in Fairbanks).

July 15th we were back in Denali on our southbound trip. This time we stayed at the Denali Village Lodge on the Nenana River. It poured rain all day but we were able to take a hike of the Savage River Trail. We saw a Ptarmigan (the Alaskan state bird) but didn't see any other animals but we did see some fantastic mountain vistas.

Left Denali at 7:00 am on July 16th heading south to Seward to board the Celebrity Millenium.

Hubbard Glacier and Seward

July 8, 2010 Hubbard Glacier

Sunny and beautiful today. Perfect day to view the glacier. We thought we were getting very close, when the captain announced we were still 4.5 miles away if that gives you any sense of the size of this baby. We actually ended up a few hundred feet from it, and witnessed many "calvings" where pieces of the glacier fell into the ocean. We saw one huge chunk drop in, and huge pieces of solid ice from underneath it came roaring up like ice whales coming up for air. What was truly amazing were the sounds. They call it white thunder, and the noise of the ice cracking and finally crumbling into the sea was just like thunder. The glacier begins 76 miles in the mountains, and the ice we see breaking off is 400 years old. Sea lions were on many of the chunks of ice that had fallen off and that was because it was a safe place for them to escape the killer whales. We spent close to two hours in front of Hubbard before sailing off to Seward.

After the glacier we spent a sea day traveling to Seward - this was a very rough part of the cruise. It had been smooth as glass up until this day.

July 9th Seward

Woke up in the morning in Seward, AK. It's a small town of 2800 people located at the end of Resurrection Bay. The bay is over 2000 feet deep, and as most of the places we have been so far, surrounded by mountains. From the dock we boarded a bus and the first stop was at the Seward Aquarium which was worth seeing. They have a 2000 pound sea lion which they fed while we were there.

After that we traveled out of the Kenai Peninsula and into the Turnagain Arm which was heavily damaged in the 1964 earthquake. Stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center to see moose, bear, elk, bison, musk ox, and deer. Left for the Chugach National Forest and Alyeska. Stayed at the Hotel Alyeska which is a fantastic ski resort in winter with a tram in the back. This was a 5 star hotel.

From Alyeska we continued on our motorcoach scenic drive to Anchorage and then Denali National Park (more on that later). From Denali we took a scenic train ride to Fairbanks. In Fairbanks where we connected with our Southbound adventure - to be continued.

Icy Straits, Juneau and Skagway

July 5th Icy Straits

Southeastern Alaska is a rain forest, and we are getting our share of wet stuff. Icy Strait consists of an old Salmon cannery, and a small Tlingit town called Hoonah. One gas station, on Ace Hardware. One school for grades 1 thru 12.

This is a place where you should schedule an excursion, because there is nothing else to do. They do have the world's largest zipline at over a mile long, but it only takes 90 seconds from top to bottom. We went on a wildlife and bear search. $220 and we never saw anything alive but each other!!! Got back to the ship, sat on the back deck, and watched 4 eagles and a sea lion play around for an hour...for free. Oh well, the people on the whale watch tour saw 26 humpback whales. We'll get them on the way back!!

Some facts about Icy Straits:

There are 110 students in the school and 54 faculty members. Federal grants are a wonderful thing. Temps in the winter almost never go below 20 degrees, but it can snow up to 7 feet in one day, and school is never called off for a snow day. There are 3600 bears here, 32 moose, and lots of deer. Each Tlingit tribe member is allowed to shoot 6 deer per year, and one bear every 4 years. This and the berries they can as jams or jellies are what they live on thru the winter. There are blueberries, strawberries, and salmon berries growing wild everywhere.


On to Juneau - July 6, 2010

Juneau is Alaska's 3rd largest city with about 31,000 people. It is the capital of Alaska, but is totally land locked. As our guide told us, there are only three ways to get to Juneau....By boat, by air, and by birth canal. Raining again today, but that's no surprise. Juneau gets an average of 270 days of rain per year. Although 25 degrees is the average winter low, it gets 100 inches of snow and has had winters with 200 inches. Great place for a capital!!!

Our excursion here was to Mendenhal Glacier and gardens.

Didn't get a chance to get too close, but the glacier was impressive and there was a huge waterfall on one side. The tide was low and the locals say when it's low tide, the "table is set." There were eagles everywhere along the shoreline looking for fish, crabs, and shellfish.

We ended the day with an Alaskan Amber beer at the Red Dog Saloon in downtown Juneau. A nice bar to visit to get some local flavor.

Just a note, the scenery on either side of the ship while we sail from harbor to harbor is fantastic. Mountains, rocks, trees, beautiful natural scenery. We have seen porpoise and sea lions, and some people have seen humpback whales, but so far, Sheryl and I have not seen a whale.

Next stop Skagway.

July 7, 2010 Skagway

Woke up today to a small town surrounded by mountains. There is the water, a building, and then a mountain going straight up behind the building. We finally got to see the sun for the first time on our cruise. We started the day at a little theatre show in town called the "Days of 98." "Soapy" Smith was the local hooligan and the show was a comedy about him and the brothel his girlfriend ran. Guess what woman they dragged up on stage to do the can-can with the "working girls?" Sheryl did great, but had a hard time walking to our next stop.

Next stop was the Red Onion Bar. Lots of fun. This had also been a brothel during the Gold Rush, and the waitresses and tour guides were dressed like turn of the century working girls.

One girl was really good at her portayal, and of course Sheryl had to set me up to get even for the can-can she had to do. I came out of the bathroom and this girl started her routine on me. Anyway, the picture tells the story.

Once out of town, we hiked up a trail to Lower Dewey Lake. Unfortunately it was a half mile straight up. Fortunately, there was a lake and waterfall once we got there. Up to now, Skagway was our favorite spot, not sure if it was because of the sun or the snow covered mountains all around. Either way, it was a great day.

Sailing away from Skagway.