Tag Archives: Travel

Anchorage, Alaska

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I have been in Anchorage for several days now. I don’t mean to criticize, but downtown Anchorage is an area in serious need of revitalization. It has a few nice small parks and green areas. It has lovely trails, mainly following Ship Creek and the bay. It has a couple of lovely larger parks with trails. Downtown has some wonderful restaurants and some nice shops also. However, the downtown area as a whole needs revitalization.

Alaska Railroad

Anchorage Information Center

Alaska Center for the Performing Arts

Ship Creek

Ship Creek

South of town is Potter’s Marsh, a wonderful place to bird.

Potter’s Marsh

Just north of the airport is Earthquake Park. At least part of the park, near the water is where homes used to be, but the homes sat on a cliff and were destroyed in the 1964 earthquake when part of the land slid into the water.

Earthquake Park, looking downhill at the area that in 1964 slid into the water

Earthquake Park

Kenai Fjords Cruise

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From our train trip to Seward, we then took a cruise from Seward around Resurrection Bay and Aialik Bay in Kenai Fjords National Park. It was an amazing six hour cruise around gorgeous scenery. There was beautiful tree-lined rocky shores and numerous glaciers. We also saw several humpback whales, harbor seals, a sea otter, and numerous birds, including puffins (one of my favorite birds).

Thumb Cove

Puffin

Humpback whale, mother and calf

Sea otter

Near entrance to Aialik Bay

Aialik Glacier

Aialik Glacier

Harbor seals in front of Aialik Glacier

Harbor seals in front of Aialik Glacier

Humpback whale

Skee Glacier

Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic

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We arrived in Anchorage a few days ago, and yesterday we took a day trip to Seward to take a cruise to Kenai Fjords. To get to Seward, we took Alaska Railroad’s Coastal Classic Train from Anchorage. The route was gorgeous. We traveled along the coast of Turnagain Arm before cutting across through glacial valleys where the Kenai Peninsula connects to the main part of Alaska. We traveled along the Placer River including through several tunnels before then traveling along the Trail River. The trip was worth the train ride alone, even if we had nothing to do in Seward. Along the way we also spotted sheep, moose, and lots and lots of birds.

Turnagain Arm

Placer River

Spencer Glacier

Placer River

Placer River

Placer River

Trail Creek

Upper Trail Lake

Lower Trail Lake

Juneau, Alaska

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I have been in Juneau for several days now, and I have had a chance to walk around historic and not completely historic downtown quite a bit. Juneau reminds me of many older cities where they still have some of the historic buildings, which in many cases have been restored and repurposed, and they have new buildings mixed in with the old ones. There is a Main Street, but the main street seems to be more Franklin Street, although with so many shops closed because of lack of cruises, downtown is slightly not normal. However because there are no cruise ships, Juneau is easy and pleasant to walk around, as in not crowded, and you can actually stand on the docks and look across the water to Douglas Island. Near downtown, Juneau has a seawalk, which is nice walk to view the water and tidal flats. Ravens are everywhere, but bald eagles are not as easily sighted.

Old Alaska Electric Light & Power building

Looking down Seward Street

Sealaska

Franklin Street

Docks

Seawalk

The Whale Project

Looking to Juneau from Douglas Island across Gastineau Channel

Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area

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We spent the say at Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, which has lots of hiking trails to see the area. Some of the trails are to provide good views of the glacier, some are for hiking in the woods, and some are few viewing the salmon and the bears when the salmon are spawning. There salmon were not here yet, but we got really lucky and saw a momma bear and her two cubs. The visitor’s center has photos and a film that shows just how much the glacier has retreated. One of the trails we hiked on also has markers showing where the ice used to be, and the retreat of the ice is incredible. The area is lovely, and one thing I liked was how basically anything that was not moving was covered in lichen and moss.

View of the Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls

Mendenhall Glacier

Nugget Falls

Steep Creek. Streams from mountain runoff are everywhere

Steep Creek flowing into glacial lake

Black bear and one of her cubs

Second black bear cub was originally sleeping in the tree before joining mom and sibling

Lichen and moss on a boulder

Lupines

Lupines

Small waterfall on Trail of Time trail

Small creek

Gold Creek Flume Trail

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The rain stopped for just a little bit this afternoon, so we went hiking on the Gold Creek Flume Trail, which is close to downtown Juneau. As far as I can tell, the entire trail is on top of a flume that takes water from the Gold Creek to a hydroelectric plant. With the exception of a small segment where a rock slide seems to be on top of the flume, it is a really easy trail to walk on, as you are on wooden planks. It is a nice hike through the woods with views of Gold Creek below and the mountains above. The western end is where the flume heads down the mountain. The eastern end seems to be where the flume separates from Gold Creek.

The western end of the trail has a very Alaska warning sign because Alaska. Only missing warning about bears.

Flume flows down the mountain

Trail is on top of the flume through the woods

Small waterfalls everywhere

Rock slide area

Waterfalls are visible in the mountains and streams are frequent near trail

Eastern end appears to be where flume is separated from Gold Creek

Gold Creek at western end of trail

Alaska State Capitol

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With this Alaska trip, I was able to accomplish one of the more difficult tasks in my quest to see all 50 state capitols, as Juneau is not the easiest capital to travel to. I also lucked out because it only opened less than a week ago before which it was closed because of COVID. The Alaska State Capitol is one of the, or perhaps the, least fancy state capitols. The building was formerly a courthouse, and then they turned it into the capitol. There is no dome or other fancy halls. It is an office building. It is lucky for the state, in a way, that they have so few residents because the senate and house chambers are small and used to be courtrooms. There are also quite a few old photos and lots of Alaska Native art, which are quite nice to see.

Alaska State Capitol exterior

House of Representatives Chamber

Senate Chamber

Senate Finance Committee Room

Alaska Natives carved door

Map of Alaska cut from piece of 48 inch pipe used to construct Trans-Alaska pipeline. Weld represents 800-mile route of the pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

Phone booths (phones do not work, I checked)

Elevator bay

Tracy Arm Fjord

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During my first full day in Juneau, I took a day cruise to Tracy Arm to see the fjord and glaciers. We saw two glaciers, Sawyer Glacier and South Sawyer Glacier, which really used to be the same glacier. Along the way to see the glaciers, we traveled through the beautiful Tracy Arm Fjord. The fjord has numerous former glacier valleys, river valleys, and water falls. The fjord has numerous icebergs, generally rather small icebergs, that have broken off the glaciers. Many of the larger icebergs serve as resting places for harbor seals. We also were lucky enough to see a black bear eating mollusks or something on the shore. Later, while headed back to Juneau, there were Steller sea lions and more harbor seals on the Midway Islands.

Iceberg

Tracy Arm fjord

Sawyer Glacier

Up close view of Sawyer Glacier

South Sawyer Glacier

South Sawyer Glacier

Up close view of South Sawyer Glacier

Harbor seal

Harbor seals

Black bear

Steller sea lions

Sitka, Alaska

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The Alaska state ferry route between Ketchikan and Juneau stops in Sitka for a couple of hours. A very wise company in Sitka runs a shuttle (i.e. a school bus) to take ferry passengers to downtown Sitka from the ferry terminal and then back again, as it is several miles. That gave us about an hour and a half in downtown Sitka. I would have loved to have a day there. The Sitka National Historical Park has some nice trails that I only had about 15 minutes to explore. There are also a couple of historic buildings I would have loved to go in, and I discovered a couple of really cute shops. When I was planning this trip, Sitka was a place I wanted to stay overnight, but alas, there is just so much to see and so little time.

Near Sitka National Historical Park

Near Sitka National Historical Park, a view of Mt Edgecumbe and downtown Sitka

Totem pole in Sitka National Historical Park

St. Michael’s Orthodox Cathedral

St Peter’s By the Sea Episcopal Church

Sitka Hotel in downtown Sitka

Alaska State Ferry: Ketchikan to Juneau

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I had a lovely stay in Ketchikan, but it was time for the next leg of my trip, which was taking the Alaska state ferry to Juneau. This trip stopped at several cities before we arrived in Juneau. There was barely time to step off the ship if desired in the cities, except for Sitka, which allowed us about an hour and half in downtown Sitka. [More on that in next blog post.] The ferry route to Juneau was gorgeous, and it went through the amazingly gorgeous and awesome Wrangell Narrows. The ferry is about the biggest ship that can go through the narrows, so that is a bit of a bonus compared to the huge cruise ships.

Inside passage near Ketchikan

Wrangell

Wrangell Narrows

Wrangell Narrows

Wrangell Narrows

Wrangell Narrows (with an out of focus bald eagle flying across the shot on the left)

Petersburg

Near Petersburg

Mt Edgecumbe, near Sitka

Juneau