Rainy Day Tours

Today was a really rainy day! Even in the rain, Juneau is beautiful. See the glistening raindrops on the spruce tips?

I did a historical downtown tour that ended up on Mt. Roberts via the tramway. It was pouring during our alpine walk! I just had to take a picture of my group. Don't they all look cute in our bright blue ponchos? It sure makes it easy to keep track of them this way!

After my tour was done, I decided to walk along Steep Creek to look for bears. On my way there, a huge black bear bounded across the road right in front of my car! I knew it would be a good day to see bears!

My timing was perfect because Jonny's hiking tour had just arrived at Steep Creek.

 Jonny's rain gear was really put to the test today!

Jonny spots a yearling black bear up in a cottonwood tree. He points it out to his group.

There it is! A young black bear sleeping up in a tree.

Isn't it cute?

If you'd like to see a video of my walk through Steep Creek, just click HERE!

Hope you enjoyed it!

Lots of Whales!

We've been seeing a whole lot of amazing things out on the water lately!

Here, you can see a pod of resident orcas. Resident pods are large, they're loud, they spend lots of time out at the surface, and they don't care who sees them! They're fish-eaters.

There's a baby in this group!

A great close-up of Pt. Retreat lighthouse.

Here we have a playful humpback calf. He decided to swing his tail out of the water for us!

This calf enjoyed leaning back with his face toward the sky.

We also got to see 10 humpbacks swimming together. If you'd like to see them, click HERE.

Next, a curious Steller's Sea Lion came up to our boat to see what all the commotion was about.

I think we scared him a little bit by the look on his face!

These next shots are of a pod of transient orcas! Transients are difficult to whale watch because their numbers are small, they are quiet, they don't spend much time at the surface, and they don't want to be seen. They're hunters, searching for prey. What do they hunt? Seals, sea lions, and baby whales.

Here's a LARGE male with a group of females. They were on the hunt for a nearby seal that swam past our boat.

The group started circling something beneath the surface.

You can see them swimming HERE.

The male in this group has a dorsal fin over 6ft tall! See how large he is in comparison to one of our boats?

This orca dives down quickly toward the kill.

Here's another great view of the large bull.

Here, you can see the orca's saddle patch. It's a marking behind the dorsal fin. You can supposedly identify individuals this way.

Summer Solstice!

We just celebrated the summer solstice! The solstice is a big deal here since the days grow significantly longer. After the summer solstice, the days get shorter and shorter until the shortest day on the winter solstice. Then it repeats again!

So what is the summer solstice? It's when the tilt of the earth is most inclined toward the sun. This means that the day is the longest on the summer solstice. You can see this demonstrated in the diagram.

So how long is the longest day in Juneau, Alaska? Why, it's 18 hours, 16 minutes and 34 seconds! This doesn't include twilight hours, before sunrise and after sunset when there is still light out. If you include that, the day is almost 21 hours long!

So how do Juneauites celebrate the Summer Solstice? With beach bonfires, of course!

This was our beautiful view just as sunset began on Douglas Island.

And this is what the sky turned into!

My cousin, Katie and I pose for a photo during the festivities.

Here's a panoramic view of the sunset at the Juneau summer solstice.

 

These photos were taken around 10:30 at night, believe it or not! We sure had a good time! Unfortunately now each day will be getting shorter and shorter from now on. We'll just have to wait for the next summer.

Misty Mysticetes

Today was a pretty special day out on the water. Gently lapping waves reflected the pure white sky. Thick mist encircled our boat and made it difficult to see. But it didn't matter- we still found so many amazing things!

Check out the misty surroundings HERE.

You can barely make out the distant islands ahead. To the left of the photo, a lone fishing boat rests on the still waters.

A closer look at the lonely fishing boat.

Sailing through the clouds.

We found a mother and her calf! Another guest got a good picture of her tail, and we were able to identify her as number 1160 in the Juneau Humpback Whale Catalog. To see her tail, just click HERE! 

Both 1160 and her calf were jumping around together. It was beautiful. Here's a quick capture of some of the action.

 One of the whales performs an amazing tail slap!

If you'd like to see them jumping, just click HERE! There's lots of pectoral slapping and tail slapping too!


They soon disappeared just as suddenly as they came.. back into the mist..

Just Another Day

While giving a Whales and Trails tour for a Disney ship today, we got to see this beauty out at North Pass. Meet Flame, aka Smudge! Her Southeastern Alaska Whale Catalog number is 1538. She can be identified by the vertical black scratch on the right side of her fluke and the small U-shaped cutout on the upper tip of the left side of her fluke. 

To view the Juneau Humpback Whale Catalog, click HERE.

She was first sighted in September of 2007 and is the offspring of Snow White. We were all very excited to see Flame because she has such a beautiful tail! Here are a few pictures of her.

Flame spouts majestically.

Here's a video of Flame diving! To see it, just click HERE!

Here are some playful Steller's Sea Lions hanging out at Faust Rock aka "The Can." You can see Pt. Retreat lighthouse in the background. The lighthouse sits at the northern tip of Admiralty Island, home to the largest population of brown bears in North America.

If you'd like to see the sea lions in action, just click HERE to watch the video!

At Mendenhall Lake today, we saw a really great iceberg. It almost looked like a giant blue anvil! I just had to take a picture of it! The shapes of these bergs are always shifting and changing. They look different every day.

On the Moraine Ecology Trail, there is a great patch of Moss Campion, Silene acaulis. It's in the Pink family. It will only bloom for a short while before the flowers are totally gone. I thought I should capture a picture of this fleeting beauty.

I also found these tiny tan mushrooms hiding behind a mossy stump. One of them has little hairs growing out of it!

These small mushrooms were a little slimier. I found these growing out of a piece of rotting wood.

And last but not least, a beautiful lupine flower in full bloom! This is the Arctic Lupine, Lupinus arcticus.

Just another day in beautiful Juneau, Alaska!

Zipline!

Jonny and I both had a day off, so we decided to go ZIPLINING!

The first zip!

Beautiful scenery on Douglas Island!

Jonny's having a great time!

Lots of lichen hanging from the trees!

A beautiful stream beneath us still has some snow surrounding it.

The next part of the course.

Having fun!

The zips go right through the forest.

Jonny's coming in backwards!

Hanging out in a tree.

One of the platforms we just came from.

Through this beautiful bear carving you can see the forest!

Yahoo!! Jonny zipping by!

 

 Jonny comes in fast!

An awesome suspension bridge takes us to the next platform.

There was nice hot blueberry tea waiting for us!

Watching the group cross the bridge.

Jonny has a little fun on the last zip.

Ziplining is so fun! If you'd like to see a video of some of our zips, just click HERE!!

After ziplining, we thought the fun was over. That was until we saw what was next! AXE THROWING!

If you'd like to see our axe throwing demonstration by our guide, click HERE!!

Then we were given these axes to throw at the targets..

 Here we go!

 Let's see how we did!

Jonny's actually pretty good with an axe! Maybe his beard has given him special lumberjack powers! I missed the target completely.

Hope you enjoyed it! See you next time!