Mendelhall Glacier and Diamond trade

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Ship from top of the trolleyway

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This was the day I was going to do the impossible, get Ekta to do white water rafting. But that was much later in the plan. We were all excited about the first port of our first cruise. We were to dock at 11am. A couple of hours before that the beautiful city came in view. A small city on a hillside accesible only by water or air, no roads! Some of the small fishing boats were looking real pretty and most cruisers gathered on the top deck to watch.

We didn't anticipate the human trafic jam to get out of the ship. It took about 20 minutes to step on land and it felt good to be in Juneau. We took the short shuttle ride to the city and saved our energy for more draining and spectacular adventures to come. We had about 4 hours to our boat trip and we had gobbled an early brunch at the Windjammer. So we were left  with a few hours to explore the city.

Getting ready for some rapids

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We started with a trolley tour to a hill top. The view was spectacular but there was nothing else there, a small trail to do some hiking and an injured bald eagle. As the trolley went up, the city looked fantastic. After that we spent some time exploring the city. I still wonder why there were so many diamond and rare stone traders there, selling at exuberent prices after huge discounts. Ofcourse we didn't buy anything.

We had earlier booked a shore excursion to the Mendelhall Glacier and a whitewater rafting trip on Degree 3 rapids. The glacier itself was about 150 feet wide and over a mile long, but it was atop a mountain. So we didn't really get very close. But the view from our raft was awesome. A lots of pictures and some sweat in out waterproof overalls later we finally on the rapids. They didn't last too long. They were good, but very short. We didn't get splashed too much but some others on our boat did, the water was freezing!

The float trip continued for another hour, some interesting scenery there. Beautiful tree-lined river meandering through the hills. Saw a curve where old cars were used to prevent land from sliding into the river. It all ended with a small alaskan snack of cider, coffee and some sausages. We were soon ready to board the ship for a 8 pm departure and a nice dinner, which by now was a thing we really waited for.