Alaska is a Pretty Cool Place!

That Brazilian dinner was AH-MAZING! I met so many nice people! They lived up in a house that was literally located on TOP of the forest. We had to climb a huge staircase into the sky to get to it. The view was incredible.

 We spent the evening playing games, including some pretty extreme Jenga!

On our way back to the house, I asked to be dropped off at Fred Meyer so I could purchase a belt since my pants kept falling down. They waited in the car and I ran inside. While in line, there was a nice man named Charlie behind me who was putting all sorts of beautiful exotic flowers onto the conveyer belt. He said he used to grow them in Hawaii, so he knew how to take really good care of them. Since he already had so many, he insisted on giving me one. He wouldn't take no for an answer, so now I am the proud owner of a Phalaenopsis! Hope I don't kill it!

As far as work goes for the past few days, they have me shadowing the more experienced guides so that I can learn from them. So far, I've gone on the Moraine Ecology Trail, the East Glacier Trail, and the West Glacier Trail. I've also gotten to cruise around Auk Bay looking for whales! I've learned quite a lot about the natural history of the area. Hopefully I can give a good tour soon by myself!

Here are some stats regarding Juneau's weather.

Depending on where you are in Juneau, it can rain anywhere from 220 to almost 300 days out of the year! This, of course, depends largely on your elevation. I believe that these data were collected at the airport, which is at sea level. Juneau is located in a temperate rainforest, so there is a LOT of rain. It hasn't rained since I've been here, actually, so the weather as far as I've seen it isn't typical. It's been quite sunny, and the temperature has been in the 70's.

With that being said, here are some pictures from my hikes!

As you can see, there are TONS of mosses on EVERYTHING! When you walk on the ground, it's very spongy. There are over 700 species of moss in this forest, and I can't even begin to identify them! Moss is very important here ecologically because without it, nothing else could grow. Because the glacier used to cover the entire area, the forest is still quite new. When it receded, it left rock and silt behind. Mosses and lichens then colonized the ground, which enabled grasses and herbaceous plants to come along. Then the alders moved in, which finally allowed the hemlocks and then the spruces to grow. What a great example of succession! There is almost no dirt or soil to be found. Instead, everything uses the moss to anchor onto the ground. Large trees have extremely shallow roots that extend for miles since there is nothing but solid rock below. Because of this, when the strong winds blow (up to 90mph at times) or avalanches occur, entire sections of land are torn out when the trees fall over. This enables new plants to colonize the freshly disturbed areas and the cycle continues!

There are also many bodies of water all throughout the area, and streams rush down the mountainsides as the snow runoff melts. Above, you can see one of the many beaver dams that are scattered throughout the forest.

Here you can see the denseness of the forest. When you climb higher in elevation, the populations of trees consist almost exclusively of sitka spruce and western hemlocks.

And now, what you've all been waiting for!! THE GLACIER!!

This is the Mendenhall Glacier. It's about 12 mi long, 1.5 mi wide, and more than 100 ft high. It flows from the southern half of the Juneau Icefield, which lies in the Boundary Ranges in southeastern Alaska. A relic of the Little Ice Age (16th century to the mid-19th century), it recedes about 100 – 150 ft a year. The adjacent Mendenhall Lake began to form about 1900 and is now 1.5 mi  long and 1 mi wide. It gets its deep blue color from the extreme density of the ice from which it's formed.

As you can see, the ice crystals from these chunks of glacier are pretty large. Up in the mountains, layers upon layers of snow fall and are compacted on top of each other. Over the course of time, this dense ice forms large crystals, which the blue wavelength of light cannot penetrate. Thus, the glacier is blue because only blue light is reflected. As the glacier melts and air is reintroduced back into the ice, it turns lighter and lighter in color as all wavelengths of light can once again penetrate the crystals.

Here's a picture of me holding a piece of ice that may be well over 200 years old!

On top of all that information, I also get to learn about whales! Here's a picture of the harbor as we headed out into the bay.

You can spot a whale from its blow spout. As a whale surfaces, it blasts water up into the air before it takes in a new breath from its blowhole.

We saw quite a few whales when we went out. They were doing some shallow dives as they swam between the boats. As a whale dives, if you time it carefully, you can get a nice shot of its fluke before it fully disappears beneath the water. No two flukes are the same, and can be used like fingerprints to identify specific individuals over time. These flukes belong to some playful humpbacks.

The captain had me drive the boat on the way back into the harbor. Since I am technically a deckhand while on board the vessel, I have to know how to drive the boat back to the dock just in case anything happens to the captain while out at sea! 

Here's a picture of the harbor while heading back in.

Later today I'm going on a training hike to learn how to engage children in some fun hiking activities, such as scavenger hunts and compass use. Guess I'd better go get ready now. See you next time!