On Day 2 of our Alaska adventure — our first full day — we woke up good and early (still on Eastern Standard Time) and were thrilled to see that it wasn’t raining, just cloudy. We checked out of the Beachside Villas and had a taxi swing by our next bed-and-breakfast, the Capital Inn, where we met the owner and dropped off our bags. The taxi waited for us, then took us out to the Mendenhall Visitors Center. In the fifteen minutes it took to travel from town, the weather changed from overcast to pouring rain. The cab driver assured us that we could wait out the rain by getting some coffee in the cafeteria at the Visitors Center. There is no such cafeteria; apparently the cab driver had never actually gotten out of his cab there. It was OK – we really didn’t need more coffee, and we just stalled for a bit at what turned out to be a very nice (warm and dry) Visitors Center, listening to the park rangers speak about receding glaciers and watching the movie. But the rain didn’t let up much. Dave was not dressed appropriately for a hike in the rain (jeans and a suede jacket); nevertheless, after purchasing “emergency ponchos” at the gift shop, we set off undaunted on the East Loop Trail.
THE EAST LOOP TRAIL
This is a lovely and well-maintained trail with stairs on some of the steeper parts. It winds up through lush temperate rain forest with fleeting views of the Mendenhall Glacier (see top photo above). After two hours of hiking we were seriously drenched. I was wearing what normally suffices as a casual raincoat on the East Coast but learned the hard way that it was nowhere near waterproof enough for hiking in Alaska. (I’d also brought serious foul weather gear — the jaunty bright yellow kind that sailors wear — but that’s not exactly hiking gear so I had left it at the hotel.) During the hike I became quite concerned about my good camera, which wasn’t staying dry even inside my raincoat because I was wet all the way through and sweating, to boot. Dave was pretty much a disaster in his suede and denim.
This is the thing I keep forgetting about rain forests: They are rainy. I have a photo of Dave from around 1988 on a trail in Northeast Australia for which the caption reads: “It was raining in the rain forest.” Flash forward to about 2004: a trip with the kids to Olympic National Park in Washington. It was raining in that rain forest, too. (In fact, it rained so much on that trip that my son’s feet started sort of shedding. I remember drying his sneakers under the hand dryer in a ladies’ room, worrying about what a bad mom I was for letting his feet rot.) NOTE TO SELF: Expect it to rain in the rain forest. Enjoy it. And especially, dress for it.
I notice now that this photo is full of the plant called Devil’s Club. I would learn exactly why it was named that a few days later.
The East Loop is a couple-hour hike. We made decent time but were embarrassed toward the end on our way down, when we met a couple running up the trail. We did not run it.
After taking a bus back into Juneau, we headed immediately to the one good outdoor-gear store in town and purchased real Alaskan rain gear — lightweight but totally waterproof jackets. (I later upgraded my rain pants as well — more on that later.) This is a key to enjoying Alaska: you simply must have the right outerwear.
MT. ROBERTS
We had been hoping to take a helicopter to Mendenhall Glacier that afternoon, but about 20 minutes before the scheduled pick-up we got a call saying that the trip was canceled due to the bad weather. We rescheduled for the next morning, with high hopes. After lounging around for a few hours in our lovely room at the Capital Inn — Stickley furniture and a huge bed that required a stool to climb into — we headed back out for the second hike of the day.
Above, the back of the Capital Inn (with the reddish fire escape). Compulsive spelling nerd that I am, I feel compelled to point out that the Capital Inn is a block from the State Capitol building (with an “o”) but the inn has an “a.” I guess it is a capital place to stay!
After debating whether to start the hike right from town, we decided to take the Mt. Roberts Tram partway up the mountain. This turned out to be a good decision, because we were whisked up quickly to a height above the clouds.
We skipped the touristy stuff at the top of the tram and got right on the trail. This is an open-air trail, which might not have been so great had it still been raining but was a nice change from the dense rain forest of the morning’s hike. We cheered up quite a bit. Within the first five minutes we started encountering creatures that we couldn’t immediately identify. Dave boldly pointed out to some Japanese hikers a “hedgehog” at the side of the trail. They looked bewildered — I thought at the time it was because they didn’t speak English and were startled by this American guy speaking to them and pointing out the animals.
I later figured out that they probably spoke perfect English and were merely wondering why this American guy was calling a baby porcupine a hedgehog. In Dave’s defense, baby porcupines are furry rather than quilly, so the mistake was understandable. (The many adult porcupines later on the trail clued us in.) We also encountered some strange animals that we couldn’t identify until we asked a ranger after our hike. Back at home I showed this photo to our son David, the naturalist, and it took him only about 5 seconds to conclude that these were marmots.
We don’t get a lot of marmots in Princeton, so I don’t know how he knew that.
Below is the view down toward Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island. Still pretty cloudy but NOT RAINING!
More critters.
