Tag: ice

Alaska: Glacier Bay National Park

Today is a scenic cruising day and I am up early. We have a 7:15am presentation by the park rangers from Glacier Bay National Park here in Alaska that have stealthily boarded our ship even earlier this morning. Luckily my aunt has saved me a seat much to the disappointment of other passengers that were eying my seat. There are some morning snacks, which is good since I haven’t had time to eat yet.

Today we are on the ship all day and the goal is to find a good viewing deck when we get close to each of the glaciers. This is the time when I regret not splurging for a balcony room. While I am pushing myself awkwardly in the tiny available spaces to get a good view I dream of having a coffee and sitting on my balcony with a delivered breakfast waiting for the glacier view to come to me. As usual my anxiety is unnecessary because we spend quite a while at each glacier and the boat slowly rotates giving one ample chances to get a good view of the glacier – multiple times.

Lamplugh Glacier

Margerie Glacier

The only disappointing thing is that we are too early in the season to see calving, or when pieces of ice break off as part of the natural cycle of glaciers – though some are receding more due to climate change.

I forgot to include last night’s meals in my previous post so here are some pictures of the tartare, lamb chops, and port wine I had last night.

Tonight for dinner we visit the speciality BBQ restaurant to get some meats and southern favorites.

I go to a late comedy show. Luckily we don’t have an early rising in the morning.

Alaska Cruise: Skagway and Yukon

We have arrived in Skagway. I affectionately call this the poor man’s port. Not that it’s all that bad per se but part of the port was damaged years ago in a landslide and it cannot safely disembark all the ships it needs to anymore. If you are one of the unlucky ships you have to travel by tender to the port, which we had to do. Honestly it wasn’t all that bad of a journey – we just weren’t getting the first class services we got at the other ports.

Today we are going to the Yukon and White Pass. We take a bus on the way to Canada and we take the scenic train ride on the way back. Once again we are blessed with amazing weather so it turns out to be a lovely day.

We have a hour or so until our tour meets so we walk into town to browse and get some coffee. It is early and not many places are open yet. It seems like it might be a little more lively in a couple hours.

Our bus ride to the Yukon goes almost in parallel to the train we will take later; we see it occasionally along the way. The view from the bus is amazing but we do stop briefly along the way for some great views.

We also see sand dunes along the way!

We finally get to the Yukon, specifically Wild Adventure Yukon where we have some free time. There are animals to see or you can participate in dog sledding. Me being weird about animals used as entertainment skip the dog sledding but after spending some time watching the dogs ramp up for the sledding I realize that they really enjoy the work. When the dogs sense the sledding is about to begin they bark and jump excitedly. It was sad when one group of dogs start howling in sadness when they realize it is not their turn to go out. If I had the opportunity again I might actually try dog sledding.

We leave the Yukon on our way to the rail station to take the famous train ride. We have one last stop at Carcross where there is some shopping and an adorable general store.

We finally board the train for our scenic ride back to Skagway.

It’s been a long day so we return straight back to the ship. I try to stay up and have a little night fun but we have an early start tomorrow so it’s off to bed.