[Juneau, AK, July 27, 2024]

We woke up to the same cloudy weather as yesterday. First order of business was a stop at a Starbucks for coffee and breakfast. We hadn’t seen each other since February and although group chats and the occasional phone call kept us in touch, a more in-depth catch up session was quite overdue!

From there, it was an easy 10 minute drive to Mendenhall glacier. It is the most easily accessible of the 38 glaciers that make up the 1500-square-mile Juneau ice field. We popped into the visitor center first, which was quite informative. We saw a map of the area and now we understood why there are no roads connecting Juneau to the rest of the mainland. The Juneau ice field is in the way!

The visitor center was built in the 1960s to give visitors an up-close view of the face of the glacier, but that has now receded more than a mile away. A series of pictures showed the retreat, which was astounding. The Juneau ice field as a whole is melting at an alarming rate, which has accelerated drastically since the 1980s. The ice field lost only 4 glaciers between 1948 and 2005. Since then, another 64 have melted way. Melting Alaska glaciers are the biggest contributors to sea level rise.

Ironically, sea level in Southeast Alaska is actually dropping. When glaciers retreat, the land below them, which was previously weighed down by the ice, starts to lift. This is known as glacial isostatic rebound. In Southeast Alaska, glacial rebound outpaces sea level rise.

Though glaciers look static to us, there is actually plenty of movement involved – it just takes years! The snow that falls at the back of the glacier, in the accumulation zone, takes years to compact and turn into ice. This river of ice then starts to gradually flow downhill, which also takes years. As the ice moves downhill, it picks up rocks and sediments that form moraines. Moraines can be lateral (on the side) or medial (in the middle) depending on where the rocks were picked up front. This picture illustrates all of this very well.

Thanks to the Mendehnhall glacier retreat, we could actually hike to a couple of spots that were previously underneath it.

The first hike was 2 miles roundtrip to Nugget Falls. The 377-foot waterfall is fed by the Nugget glacier, which was not visible. The Mendenhall glacier is also not visible from the waterfall, although this was not always the case. Compare my photo to this 2011 one by World of Waterfalls, which seems like it’s taken from a similar vantage point. The difference is striking!

The second hike was more of a .3 mile walk to a viewpoint. Visibility was not great but we still took photos and enjoyed chatting with other visitors.

Our Starbucks breakfast wasn’t that big, so we were hungry again. We went back to downtown Juneau and had lunch at Alaskan Brewing Company. The BBQ sampler was delicious and the beers were great, too.

After that, we walked around a bit. We were surprised to see a ton of jewelry shops. Apparently, there is no sales tax in Alaska, which makes it enticing for tourists to purchase expensive items like jewelry here. Many of the shops tried to entice you to go in by offering a free gift with your cruise ship tag. We didn’t have ours yet, but I was wondering what the gift would be. Olivia was convinced a very high-pressure sales pitch would follow and she wanted nothing to do with it.

We also noticed the tram to Mt. Roberts. We considered taking it, but the weather was so bad that the already steep price of $55 was definitely not worth it. I talked to some of the passengers disembarking and they confirmed you couldn’t really see much. But they did say there is a trail that goes from the edge of town through the forest to the top of the tram. I looked that up and we decided to keep it as an option for the next day, assuming we’d have time and the weather was better.

After some rest in our hotel, we emerged again for dinner. We were surprised to find a Russian pelmeni (dumpling) place nearby. It’s a very casual place but the dumpling were delicious.

Olivia wanted another beer, so we stopped by Devil’s Club brewery. I held out because I wanted to check out the gin distillery directly across from our hotel. Amalga Distillery was amazing. I enjoyed the Hibiscus and Orange gin drink, which only cost $8! The place was modern and the vibe was super relaxed since it was a distillery and not an actual bar. It was a great way to cap off our first full day in Alaska.