As soon as we arrived back at port from our whale watching excursion we went straight to the meeting point for our Juneau City & Mendenhall Glacier Excursion. We also purchased this excursion through Port Promotions as a package deal with other city tours. It ended up costing us about $50 each for the two and a half hour tour. 
I snapped this shot of the Alaska governor’s mansion as we drove by. Our driver had some interesting history and facts about the area.
We stopped at a stream. We could see a few salmon, but were told that in season that salmon run is spectacular. Then we drove to the Mendenhall Glacier at Tongass National Forest.
Oh my goodness. The view is breathtaking. I was unprepared for the beauty of a glacier. I mean, it’s just ice right? No! Not JUST ice. Wow. I can’t even describe to you the beauty. The photos don’t do it justice. It is full of streaks of blue and green, just beautiful.
Now if I had to do this over again I would not do the tour. For $10 each way or $20 total per person you can take a bus from the port to the Mendenhall Glacier. That would save you $30 per person and give you as much time as you want to look around. We only had one hour. The hike down to the waterfall was two miles so at a brisk walk we just barely had time to go down and back before meeting our bus. I would have loved to have spent another hour or two here.
This is the opposite side of the glacier and waterfall. So pretty!
Almost there! I couldn’t believe we would be able to walk right out in the middle on what looked like a sand bar but was mostly rocks.
So amazing to be able to stand right at the bottom of a powerful waterfall! Jason was getting sprayed pretty good!
This was the closest we got to a glacier. Popular excursions took people on helicopter rides on top of a glacier. That would be pretty neat, but Jason and I were leery of taking any small plane or helicopter rides anyway, but the prices made sure to keep us away. I won’t say never though. 😉
It was super windy down there close the the waterfall. I’m not posing, just trying to keep the hair out of my face. After getting our photos we hiked back up. We were told bears can often be seen around the forest, but we didn’t see any.
On the way back to port we drove by lakes and beautiful scenery. Then our tour guide took us to a lookout were we could get a neat view across the water of our ship.
We thoroughly enjoyed this excursion, but would recommend doing it on your own instead. Save the money and spend the time where you want to!
Leave a Reply