Day-to-Day Sights

Jonny and I have been doing a lot of tours every day, so we get to see all sorts of fantastic things out in the forest and on the water. Check out some of these day-to-day sights!

Here are some little mushrooms we spotted near the mining ruins on the East Glacier Trail.

Another beautiful patch of lupines.

This raven showed no fear as we approached it on the Steep Creek Bridge. These birds are all over the place. They are incredibly large and incredibly crafty. You can often hear their strange calls echoing throughout the forest.

A nice view from a platform out on the Rainforest Trail on Douglas Island. Here you can see tons of skunk cabbage! As the name implies, this plant doesn't have the most pleasant odor.

These leaves grow to be so large!

Tall devil's club on the Rainforest Trail.

 Just hanging out in the forest!

Here we have some wild salmon berries! They're related to the raspberry and taste pretty similar too. The berries can be deep pink to a salmon-like color. The little clusters resemble salmon eggs, hence the name!

Mmmm.. delicious!

And who has been leaving these large messes out on the Moraine Ecology Trail?

Aha! I spotted this guilty bear out in the bus parking lot after I dropped off a group. We were all so excited to see this little bear.

I've also been spotting a lot of eagles lately. Here we have a pair sitting up on the day marker out in Auke Bay.

This hungry eagle explores the coastline near DIPAC where fishermen were catching salmon.

He flies off over the Gastineau Channel and across to Douglas.

These tasty morsels are what they're after. A chum salmon!

And let's not forget those whales! Let's observe some lovely tails!

 This whale was so close! I just love the water droplets beading off of this fluke.

And here you can see some bubble-net feeding shots! We had a pod of nine whales all working together to gather fish. They blow bubbles around the school and work them to the surface where they swim through with their mouths open to gobble them up.

If you'd like to see a video of bubble-net feeding, click HERE! We put a hydrophone in the water so we could hear the whales while they fed. Listen to their calls!

And after the huge rainstorm we had today, the sky cleared up a bit and we saw the sun peek out behind some clouds. Jonny took these gorgeous photos near our condo.

Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4th of July from Juneau!


Because the days in the summertime are so long, we have to watch our fireworks a little bit early. We get ready on July 3rd and wait until midnight approaches. At 11:59 PM, the fireworks are launched from a barge in the Gastineau Channel! We watched them from our friend Van's sailboat again this year.

Jonny and I wait anxiously for the show to start!

Van steers the boat.

The beautiful city lights reflect off the water.

Fireworks!

The best thing about watching the fireworks is experiencing the reverberations bouncing powerfully off the mountains. All of Juneau gathers, lining the shoreline of Douglas Island and all of downtown Juneau. Bonfires light up the night, and you can hear excited cheers from across the water as over 30,000 people celebrate together as one.

If you'd like to see a little bit of the show, just click HERE!

Hope yours was as good as ours!

Grouse!

I was doing a Town, Tram and Timberline tour today when while up on Mt. Roberts, we saw this large bird off in the alpine meadow! And she had chicks with her!

Here's a close-up of momma bird.

One of her curious chicks!

Such a cute little chick.

That's all for now!

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!