However, having said this when we visited Juneau second time round it is fair to say that the weather was not a highpoint. The first day was great and we walked the west glacier trail, we tried and failed to scale the heights of Mount McGinnis at the top of the trail as we got up really late having spent the previous evening talking and drinking around the campfire with new friends.
Then the rain started.....We had 30 straight hours of rain and although our tent had done well to that point there was nothing we could do to keep dry once a large pool developed underneath it. While sheltering in the cooking shelter, Desi who we had met on the ferry appeared from the rain, she knew we were at this campsite but not where and so had been shouting at random peoples tents trying to find us! She and Pat and Pats mum rescued us from the soggy campsite for a 'rainy day in Juneau' tour of sights including the Alaskan Brewery tour. Pat was a complete legend as he lent us his old truck which allowed us to get out of the rain and to the cinema.
Always the adventurer Ralph braves the hazardous trail for 10ft before turning back as it turned out to be the wrong direction
Not a bad view- Mendenhall glacier from West Glacier trail
It was quite unnerving to watch helicopters landing on the glacier and we watched to see if any tourists fell down the cracks!
We started to climb Mt McGinnis which was great fun scrambling up the trail but it was a bit late in the day to get all the way up and back before it got too dark
the icefield behind the glacier
Mendenhall glacier campground pre-flooding
Every evening we visited the lake to watch at least three beavers busy collecting and returning to the lodge with new materials, apart from one who spent his time patrolling near us or we suspected pretending to the other beavers he was out helping collect materials but instead just enjoying cruising up and down the lakeside. On the same evening we even heard another beaver chewing a tree in the distance.
Me and the A- team, Andrea and Adam who kindly took me on a beer run, these friendly Canadians gave us salmon and let us share their firewood - Ay!
On the way back from hanging about and having beers by the fire with our campsite chums we met a guy by the beaver lake who was a bow hunter. He said guns were for idiots and told us you needed to get within 20ft of a deer in order to get a clean kill. He had been producing some videos on tracking techniques with a local native man for the benefit of native young people which sounded pretty cool. He said he'd been to England...can you guess which town a rugged bow-hunting Alaskan might have visited? Stevenage of course!
On the way back from hanging about and having beers by the fire with our campsite chums we met a guy by the beaver lake who was a bow hunter. He said guns were for idiots and told us you needed to get within 20ft of a deer in order to get a clean kill. He had been producing some videos on tracking techniques with a local native man for the benefit of native young people which sounded pretty cool. He said he'd been to England...can you guess which town a rugged bow-hunting Alaskan might have visited? Stevenage of course!
beautiful weather in Alaska - a walk to Auke Bay in the rain
Just in case we have been seeming too smug - check out this scenic walk to the coast
us with Desi at an old mining operation near the Perseverance trail at the top end of town just after she and Pat rescued us from a soggy campsite
Jason and Christina the nice "burners" who gave us beer and told us about the burning man festival. Christina has spent the previous 6 weeks watching to see what sea otters had been eating, how cool is that?
The Alaskan brewery
On the brewery tour with Pat and his mum
The wheels
Shelter! We spent a lot of time sheltering in here
On returning to the camp after the film we were met with the highly unpleasant surprise of a body lying in the rain in the middle of the road. It was pretty frightening stuff - it looked like it was either a hit and run or bear attack and 2 dogs were circling the body barking. After we had pulled up to alert the campground host Ralph ran back shouting (to alert any potential bears of his presence), the dogs were not massively friendly and were protecting the person on the ground, but once the lady replied to Ralph's shouts he knew she was consious and she called back to the dogs who surrounding her. She turned out to be very drunk, in fact the second lady we had physically removed from lying in a road drunk in as many weeks.
On the last day we met a really nice couple from Peterborough that were cycling from Alaska to Argentina. They both worked promoting cycling in schools and work places but funding for their roles had been dropped recently. Having worked for the woodland trust the guy actually knew some of same people Fiona did. When I find the bit of paper with their blog address on I can say a little more about them.
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