Alaska Day 3

It has been nearly three weeks since Stan and I took our little jaunt up to Southeastern Alaska. Life interceeded and I have not been able to post the final pictures of our trip.  I am making time to do so right now.

We left Juneau on Sunday morning, June 30th for the quick flight to Ketchican, the final leg of our little adventure. For some reason, I could not get the setting on my camera to work for me and my in air pictures are not as sharp as I like them to be. If you look into the background of this picture, you can see another glacier. They really are beautiful and the Majesty of God's creation just shouts out at you from high above it.

Mountains jutting up through the clouds.

A cruise ship making it's way into port in Ketchican. It was still a way out, but it was expected to land while we were in town.

Coming into Ketchican, you landed on the opposite side of the channel from the town. The landing strip looked a little scary from above.

A little better picture of it as we approached.  You land on the far left side and then make a sharp right at the end on the runway, go down a hill and taxi to the end once again and then down to the terminal.  Kind of interesting. Three levels. 

In this picture, the ferry is across the channel from the airport. It comes over and ferries you across to the Ketchican side of the channel for a small fee.

We saw several Eagle in the area. They are so amazing to watch. The grace of their flight in comparison to their size is amazing to me.

Ketchican Creek that flows through town.  Much of the old town is built around this creek.

Harbor picture.

Both of these homes were very successful businesses in the early days of Ketchican. The "lady" proprietresses of both lived in them after their businesses were declared illegal.  I believe they both passed away sometime in the 50's. This street in now a big attraction to the tourists, full of kitchey little shops. You can see under the buildings the pilings, it is because this street is built along side and sometimes over Ketchican creek.

Ketchican has the largest collection of standing totem poles. Notice also the tram going up the hill to the businesses up above.  We did not ride it up, but found it to be rather interesting.  You can see the red car just above the roof of hte building in the foreground.

There were four cruise ships along the docks downtown.  There are two more slips further out of the downtown area and they were expecting both to be occupied by evening.

Ketchican boasts being the Salmon Capital of the world.  She was also, once upon a time, a logging town. Sadly so many regulations have severely curtailed both industries. She relies more and more upon the tourist trade now.

I just liked the tunnel going under the hill, the house atop the tunnel and the stairs going up.

I am thinking if one were to do these stairs even once a day, up and down, you would never have to worry about having thunder thighs.  Stan thinks they would make an amazing bobsled run in the winter.

Almost home.  Can you see the Space Needle?

Coming in for a landing, Both of our sports arenas below us.

Mount Rainier.  We will be on the ground within minutes.

We are trying to decide on where to go next.  Have been looking at the Grand Canyon, but need to wait for it to cool down a bit down there before we wander off that direction.  Maybe this weekend just a little car trip.  I am wanting to head out onto the Olympic Peninsula, we have not been there since the kids were little.
I guess I will just have to wait until tomorrow morning and see which way the wind is blowing when we get up.
Do you have fun plans for the weekend?

Juneau Day 2

Ferry in the Gastineau Channel as we flew into Juneau from Sitka on Friday evening.

Juneau from the air.  I really wanted to get up to visit the capital but since we were afoot and there were many hills, I did not. Knees do not like to climb hills any longer.

Another view of Juneau from the air.

We got to downtown Juneau on Sunday morning before all of the tourists were out and about.  I managed to get this picture of one of the streets without interference of tourists.

Juneau is built at sea level, but the mountains begin immediately and it is not at all unusual to see these stairways going uphill to homes.

I love Turrets.

Another downtown picture.

Stairway between two buildings up to homes on the hill.

We took a bus out to the Mendenhal Glacier in the afternoon.  The walk out to the glacier itself was a rather pleasant one. About one mile along a very well maintained trail. Of course, with my bum knees, it took us much longer than normal but I made it.  Along the way, I spotted this huge boulder with the white rock embedded in it. I have no idea what it was, but you can see veins of it running through the rock.  One thing about walking slowly, you see so many more things that you miss when you make a beeline to the destination.

A blooming cottonwood. May have missed this too if I were not strolling (limpimg) along the path.

As close as we could get.  Apparently a few years ago, the glacier covered the rocks to the right of the picture completely.  By looking at the picture, you could imagine that it also went up to the green line to the left side of the glacier also. Because it was a rather overcast day, the glacier presented as a beautiful blue.

Nugget Falls, right beside the glacier.  In the foreground is the reflection of the falls in a small pond.

I wanted to stick around long enough for Cassandra to arrive and see how she answered but we had a bus to catch and I do not walk a 10 minute mile any longer.
Hope she said yes.

Fireweed along the trail.

I have no idea what they are, but I found them rather pretty.

Again, I know we missed much of what there is to see because we were afoot. A car would be nice so we could explore the 40+ miles of roads. I really felt like we missed a lot, but after walking all over Sitka and the walking we did do in Juneau, we were beat and made an early retreat to our hotel.

A weekend in Southeastern Alaska Day one.

On Friday morning, Stan and I got up early and caught a flight from Seattle to Juneau Alaska.  From there we immediately flew to Sitka. I apologize for some of these pictures.  Some were taken from about 30,000 feet in the air. Others were taken from the ground, but through dirty airplane windows and a few were taken through the mist.

As we approached Juneau, Stan spotted this volcano in the far distance. You can see the steam rising from it.

I had heard many stories about the Juneau airport being one of the most dangerous in the country.  It has a short landing /take off strip. When you take off, it looks like you are flying directly into this mountain.  You do make a right turn and follow a channel up and out of the valley.

This is one of the first sights that greets you when you land in Juneau.
The Mendenhal Glacier.

I really do like taking pictures from the air.  This is one of the sights between Juneau and Sitka.  You get a far different view of the world from the top :)

The harbor in Sitka with Mt. Edgecumbe in the background.

Fishing boats in Sitka Sound, with lighthouse in the background.

Russian Orthodox Church, built literally in the center of town. The street splits and goes around it.

A few steps short of 100 take you up to the site known as Castle Hill. It was at this spot that  Russia transferred ownership of Alaska to the US.

Sitka is the home of the amazing Sheldon Jackson Museum. Mr. Jackson was a Presbyterian missionary and the first General Agent of Education for Alaska.  In his travels, he collected an amazing collection of artifacts. The curator of the museum allowed and even encouraged taking pictures.
The above picture is of bags made from gut.

The museum artifacts cover all of the native cultures.  The Inupiats and the Yup'ik of the North west The interior Athabascans,  The Aleut and Alutiiq of the Aleutian Islands, the Peninsula, Kodiak Island and parts of the Peninsula. The Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian of the Northwest Coast. Sitka is included in the later group.
The bags shown here were used as common household items, holding food and tools, much as we use our Tupperware today.

An amazing beaded bag.  I would carry this today if I were so lucky to own one.

This basket was made of sea grass.

Waterproof hunting clothes.  The stitching in this was so amazing.  Even stitches and so close together. If one did not know better, one would think it was sewn on a Bernina.
Sorry for the glare.  Everything was, understandably, under glass. I felt lucky to be allowed to take pictures.

A birch bark canoe.

I just found this smoke stack interesting.  Do not have any history on it.  It was one one of the buildings in the Sheldon Jackson  school compound

The people on this boat must have just returned to the harbor. They were sorting fish.

Another view of the harbor with the lighthouse in the background.

The old High School.

I did not get the history of this building, but loved the architecture.

We did not have a car on this trip.  I would love to go back and rent a car so I could go further out. There is so much that we did not see. I would also like to get out of the downtown tourist area. There are not many roads here at all, but I think we could get a few miles out and take in even more of the breathtaking beauty.

I did not get a picture of the airport, but you landed on an island across a channel from Sitka and then drove across a bridge to reach the city.  We were lucky enough to catch a ride with a man whose son picked him up at the airport. They dropped us off on the main street with direction to the "best" breakfast spot in town.

We flew back to Juneau in the evening and spent the night there and walked Juneau on Saturday.  Those pictures next.