MAY 28, 2019
There isn’t much to Juneau. It’s got about 35,000 residents and we saw 4 mid-sized cruise ships in port. The tourists clog up the small downtown area and take the tram to the top of Mt Roberts. They also ride buses to see the Mendenhall Glacier and the old mining museum.
We went to the glacier with the hope that at around 4pm, it wouldn’t be too crowded. There were still a bunch of buses on the lot. We went to the visitor’s center and saw a great video of the glacier’s history and saw a time lapse of the last 25 years. It’s receding. We saw a small “calved” iceberg floating. When Gerry moved here 30+ years ago, the glacier extended to the waterfall on the right. It won’t be long before it recedes away from the glacier lake that formed centuries ago.
Fishing has been a staple occupation here for centuries. Today there’s still a lot of salmon and crab fishing. Tourism is now a big thing as well. I was disheartened to learn that the many little shops that benefit from the cruise ship visitors, thousands of them at a time, are actually owned by the cruise ship companies. So the profits are not benefitting the native people here. And on top of that, everywhere you go are the “free” coupon books for savings all over town. If a shop owner doesn’t give into the cruise companies for them to reap the profits, there won’t be a coupon for the shop.
MAY 29, 2019
Today we took the tram to the top of Mt Roberts to watch Gerry launch in his para gliding wing. What a rig!!! When all packed in, it’s in a backpack that weighs about 35 pounds. Once the wing is unpacked and he pulls out his flight suit, gloves, instruments, etc. the pack reversed into the harness that attaches by many strings to the wing while flying.
The wind was a bit quirky so the launch took some time. But once the right breeze showed up Gerry pulled up the wing, rotated around and took half a dozen steps before becoming airborne.
We started to go back down thinking the flight would take some time and he’d enjoy a good one. Turns out the breeze was really bumpy and it was not good for an enjoyable flight. Only about 20 minutes after takeoff, we got a text saying he’d landed. We were still hiking back down to the tram station!!!! We got down, to the car, and to the landing zone in about 40 minutes. Gerry was repacking his gear.
MAY 31, 2019
Yesterday we went to the Alaska Museum. Very nice and compact museum of the history, events and culture of Alaska.
Today we took another ferry! This time it’s a 4.5 hour ride to Gustavus AK. We’re staying at the Glacier Bay Lodge and tomorrow we’ll have a full day visit by boat to Glacier Bay NP.
