Alaskan Cruise Part 4: Juneau and the Taku Lodge

Juneau was probably our favorite stop of the whole cruise, and I could totally see myself living here.  The locals did tell us that it has been unseasonably warm this summer however, so perhaps I would be less keen to move if visiting during "normal" weather.   I bet the fall is beautiful though... right up until the point it gets blanketed with ten feet of snow.

We docked early and spent a little time walking around town before heading down to the waterfront to hitch a ride to our excursion to the Taku Lodge.  

Now don't get me wrong, I love to fly.  I may be a professional adult, but I will still knock someone down on a Southwest flight to make sure I get a window seat.  There's just something about watching the world go by from 30,000 feet; but commercial airplanes are like giant buses.... as in, they are pretty stable.  Something about climbing into this little contraption made me a bit nervous.  Not so much that we were going to crash, but more that I might become violently ill and vomit on my fellow passengers.  

As it turns out, the ride was actually lovely, with very little turbulence.  And even better, EVERYONE gets a window seat.  No fighting necessary.  

how hot is this guy??

And besides, the views were so amazing that I was too busy looking out the window to even think about getting nauseated.  

The flight takes about 45 minutes and flies over five glaciers and some of the most amazing scenery ever before landing on the Taku river in front of the Lodge.

The first thing you notice about the lodge, besides the breathtaking scenery, obviously, is the smell of grilling salmon.  Which happens to smell pretty amazing.  Much like the crab, I am fairly certain it is impossible to get bad salmon in Alaska.

om nom nom!

Humans aren't the only ones who enjoy the smell of delicious grilled salmon... This is Gaby, one of the regular black bear visitors.   The bears that come to Taku Lodge are wild bears, and the lodge doesn't actually feed them; but, since the salmon is grilled outside, they can't really stop the bears from cleaning up the drippings.   They do make sure that the bears don't threaten the safety of the guests though.  

After wandering around the grounds for a bit and checking out the gift shop, we all headed inside for lunch.  And Oh. My. Gosh. It was AMAZING.  Fresh salmon, baked beans, coleslaw,  apple compote... plus the most delicious herb biscuits ever.  It would be pretty much impossible to leave this place hungry.  Much easier, on the other hand, to leave it painfully full.

why waste freezer space when you can just chip ice off a glacier...

To work off some of our gluttony, we decided to take a little walk.  We thought we were walking on a trail that looped through the woods and back to the lodge, but after walking quite some ways, with no turn in sight, we decided to turn around and head back.  Its a good thing we did, since it turns out we were actually on a three mile trail to nowhere.

There was about an hour for exploring after lunch before we heard the sound of the seaplanes coming in with the next round of guests and it was time to load back up for the flight back to Juneau.  Once we made it back to town, it was time for the real goal of our trip to Alaska...

Through a friend of Colby's who is originally from Alaska, we have recently discovered the wonderful beers of the Alaskan Brewing Company.  They aren't available everywhere in the lower 48 yet, but we have been lucky enough to get them here in Texas and they have pretty much become Colby's favorite new beer.  So of course we stopped into their store in downtown Juneau, then hitched a ride up to the brewery itself for a little tour and taste testing.  

If you are renting a car in Juneau, its a short, easy drive up to the brewery.  But if you don't want to hassle with all that, you can catch a ride on their shuttle for $7 a person.  They leave once an hour and you just hop in the van with a bunch of other beer lovers and take a scenic tour through town and out to the brewery.   If you're lucky, perhaps you will get the same tie-dye wearing van driver we had and you can enjoy his entertaining take on living in Juneau. 

You start out as a group with a guide that gives you some mini beers and goes through the history of the company and some info on the beers you get to sample.  Then they turn you loose in the bar/gift shop where you sample even more beers!  Yay for free beer!!

And then, if you haven't had enough beer, when you get back into Juneau you can kill the rest of your afternoon at the infamous Red Dog Saloon.  This beer definitely wasn't free, the place was completely packed with tourists, and the musical performance was mediocre... but we did get some delicious duck farts.  So we counted it as a win.

All in all, it was a pretty spectacular day.  And if you find yourself in Juneau, make sure you do the Taku Lodge excursion.  Even the locals say its something everyone should do while in Juneau, which is saying something.  

Alaskan Cruise Part 3: Icy Strait Point

The second stop on our northbound adventure was a little port called Icy Strait Point.  The cruise ship drops anchor in the harbor and its a short tender ride to the dock.  Icy Strait Point consists more or less of the historic Hoonah Packing Company, which was operated as a salmon cannery from 1912 until the 1990's.  Now it is the only privately owned cruise ship destination in the US and they only allow one cruise ship in at a time, which means there are far fewer people to contend with than at the other port cities that have three or four docked at a time.  

There is a really interesting museum in the main building that goes through the history and machinery involved in processing the salmon which you can wander through at your own pace.  There are also several shops and a cafe in the main complex, a crab shack, and a restaurant just a short walk down the trail.  Aside from the museum portion, we didn't really use any of the aforementioned establishments, but you know... they are there.

The Radiance of the Seas... our home away from home for a week.

There are lots of excursions you can choose in Icy Strait Point, but we opted mostly to just walk around and soak in the scenery.  It was cloudy and cool, but nothing a light jacket and hat couldn't remedy.  There is a nature trail along the water and one that winds in through the trees, both of which were equally beautiful.

After our walk, we still had some of time to kill so we decided to add the zipline excursion just in time to catch the bus for one of the last rides up.   This old school bus takes you through the town of Hoonah, just a short ride up the road from Icy Strait Point, and then up the mountain roughly a mile from the dock.  The driver is a local and he pointed out all the highlights of town and had lots of good stories to pass the time on the 45 minute ride.

Aaaaaaand the zipline is freaking amazing. Its 5,330 feet long, and a 1,300 foot drop in elevation, which is pretty spectacular.  In the minute and a half it takes you to get from top to bottom, you'll reach speeds of sixty miles an hour.  Which is pretty freaking fast when you are suspended 300 feet about the tree tops in what seems a lot like a fabric camping chair.  Seriously worth every penny.  If you make it to Icy Strait Point, do the zip line.  Don't argue with me, just do it.  Also, please excuse the cursing at the beginning.  Its a rather frighteningly long drop to the ground when they spring the doors open.  And luckily Colby was holding the camera, because I'm pretty sure what I yelled was even worse...

When we got back, we took a few more scenic pictures and wandered over to check out the totem poles in front of the Heritage Center Native Theatre.

The view of the road towards Hoonah from the cruise ship was pretty gorgeous...

That black lump between the boat and the far shore is a whale... we saw quite a few, but all from a similar distance.  Maybe next time we will try a whale watching tour and try for some closer views.  We might have been a bit hung over this day, and seeing how rough that made the bus ride up the mountain, I'm not sure either of us could have handled a small boat. 

Might have gone a little crazy with the pictures here, but the scenery is just so gorgeous I couldn't help it.  Even the sky is more beautiful in Alaska.