As we docked in Juneau, we were greeted by rain, clouds over the mountains, and the same types of tourist shops we had seen surrounding the docks in Ketchikan. (“That’s the real Alaska,” I heard over and over again, every time it rained, from everyone who worked in the tourist industry.) In general, people don’t let rain slow them down (although I heard that the “flightseeing” helicopter rides were canceled).
But the rain didn’t disrupt anything I had planned (other than photography). My first order of business was to get on a bus that took me roughly 17 miles north of town for a rafting trip in Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River. The primary point of the trip was to see Mendenhall Glacier, which was clearly in view as the raft trip began. The weather conditions at the Glacier were halfway between what you see in these two photos, and you can find more photos on the Tongass Web site. Parts of the glacier did look light blue–due to the compression of the ice caused by higher parts of the ice field on lower sections, I was told. I was also told that glaciers look blue on cloudy days but white on sunny ones.
The excursion description that I read before signing up indicated that this was a “float” and likely would be quite tame—although there was a vague comment about water conditions being weather dependent. I ended up lucking out in that regard. It had rained hard the preceding night, and the continuing precipitation helped the river achieve its highest level of the summer: 13 inches—officially an inch above the flood level. We occasionally passed $500K – $1M houses scattered along the shores of the river—although none of them appeared to be flooded. We also ran into a few patches of class III and IV rapids.
A fun time was had by me (although some of my fellow passengers were not too pleased). We all had paddles, but our guide had oars and did all of the steering and most of the work. We ended up with a lot of water in our raft and spent quite some time bailing with a large bucket. The lake and river were fed by Mendenhall Glacier—so the water temperature was just a few degrees above freezing. But we had been provided with knee high rubber boots and waders—so we were dry—if not 100% warm.
So this trip was nothing like the first whitewater rafting trip I took 10 years ago on the Youghiogheny River in West Virginia—where the guides were in kayaks, leaving us to steer and paddle on our own—and where getting dumped into the river (4 times in my case) was just part of the fun. Here, the guides were determined to keep us in the boat. They weren’t playing around with hypothermia.
Yay! I remember that trip! Getting dumped in the river was definitely one of the fun parts (you know, if you managed to avoid injury).
I never saw a day of rain in Alaska. One day of 90 degree temperature but never rain. You saw the real Alaska. All the guide books say to bring your water proof bubuska.
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