Juneau: where people walk on glaciers

 The view from my HELICOPTER window this morning.

Today’s amazing terrifying adventure was a ride in this helicopter, which I was not at all sure would get off the ground with all six of its passengers squeezed so tightly but rise it did - of course. We had a fantastic perspective on Juneau (and environs), the capital of Alaska. It’s surprising that there is no way in/out of their capital city except by boat or plane.

We ran the departure gauntlet, today it was by tender, with 4,000 of our nearest & dearest, found our tour meet point in town, listened to the safety advice (we know this by heart now), arrived at the helicopter place to be fitted for crampons, more safety advice and then we were off. Helicopter flying is very bird-like. I was just starting to relax and enjoy it and we were landing … on Menendhall Glacier.

Our guide told us so many interesting facts. I tried to focus, honestly but I was standing in the most awe inspiring place. My heart was too skippy happy for my brain to take in anything other than info from my five senses. Cool air to breath & feel on my face, delicious water to drink, scooping with my cupped hands from rivulets of pristine glacier water, which I could have drunk all day. White and blue as far as I could see and moments of silence, when we all found ourselves awed by this place of natural beauty. What an extraordinary privilege this was. 

To be in the sun, which in itself is astonishingly rare, with only a few other people, standing on this massive ancient river of ice.

It was hard to come back down to earth after.  It was good to be able to walk in some more sweet nature before we enjoyed the lunch as the last part of this excursion. Quite delicious and very well run outdoorsy salmon bake. 

Juneau, was a bit tricky to capture in photos. 

And it was inundated by the population of the five cruise ships that were in port so we didn’t stay long there. We visited the Library, as you do, wandered the main shopping street for a bit & then returned to the boat for a rest. 

Bye bye Juneau.