Juneau day 1

Juneau Hostel

Juneau hostel—check. Heritage coffee company—check. Juneau library (on top of a parking garage, with the most fabulous view out the front windows except when the damn behemoth cruise ship is parked in the way…)—check! Mt. Roberts trail up, tram down—check. Twisted Fish restaurant for blackened salmon Caesar salad—triple check, two thumbs way up! I’m working my way down Molly Dutton’s must-see list in Juneau, and tomorrow I’ll take on the glacier.

I had to take an expensive taxi to the hostel, but at $10/night there you can afford a couple taxi rides. It is very clean, well run and congenial, although having to vacate the place between 9 AM and 5 PM makes me feel a little bit homeless.



Tlingit dancer




Littlest Tlingit dancer





waterfront from the tram, halfway down

Juneau is really interesting; a capital city of 31,000 that feels like a small town. A small TOURIST town. I feel sorry for the year round residents. I can see what it must be like to have several hugemongous cruise ships a day tie up and disgorge hoards of tourists onto your streets. I know this is probably elitist, but I think I’d much prefer to snack on ground glass and poke both my eyes with lit sparklers than to go on one of those behemoth cruise ships…there’s just something distasteful about being a tourist anyway, and being associated with one of those stereotypical ugly American icons is just too much. Of course I AM a tourist right now, but I waste no time correcting people who ask what cruise ship I’m on and letting then know that I was here WORKING (sort of). Juneau reminds me a lot of Sandpoint, Idaho, but with a waterfront like a miniature Seattle or San Francisco. And glaciers, although you can’t quite see them from town proper. There is a narrow strip of land between the water of the Gastineau Channel and the almost vertical mountains, and the streets rise up like Seattle’s and turn into stairways without much warning.




Very old Russian Orthodox church just a block or 2 from the hostel




Tlingit (pronounced like "klinkit") totem pole





Another Tlingit totem pole




Capitol building






I just liked the building

But I have had a great day here, had a real bacon and eggs grease fest for breakfast in the Capitol Cafe, did a photographic walk-about of the downtown and waterfront, and then took these chubby little dachshund legs on a steep hike up to the Tram site way above the waterfront. It was so nice to hike along through lush huckle- and salmonberry vines, devil’s club (ok not so nice, but pretty from a distance) and other plants that forced my overly-health-care-saturated brain to go into the back filing cabinets and drag out the Latin names of the aforementioned plants. There’s something about knowing the plants and their Latin names that just feels like a big pile of treasure; not the kind you hoard but the kind that you just love giving away to whoever wants and needs it. The Latin just rolls off my tongue with a truly sensual pleasure—who couldn’t enjoy saying things like “Arctostaphylos uva-ursi”? OK, I know lots of people who enjoy it and their names are Molly, Laurie and I’m sure there’s someone else.

Anyway, I’m out of shape! As if I didn’t already know that! 5 weeks of eating stuff I NEVER eat at home, like French fries, deep fried egg rolls, CAKE for crying out loud! have added about 7 pounds to the 7 pounds I already accumulated last year when I quit Holy Family. I was sweating in the extreme 62 degree heat. There’s a new leaf that will be turned over when I get home, a new and improved leaf. I can’t STAND to be this out of shape and this fat!

View from the beginning of the Mt. Roberts trail; I started back of the hostel at the top of the 6th street stairs, and climbed up many switch backs to reach the top



View from the tram

The ravens are everywhere, whooping it up like a grade school classroom, but I haven’t seen as many eagles as in Sand Point. I do have a good picture of one perched on a tree outside the tram station up top. Stay tuned for day 2…

There's an eagle on the left; no really; its head is that white speck perched on the tree



From the tram, almost down


Tlingit drummer