Juneau How to Get to Alaska?

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Maniac at the Store

It’s mid-August 2022, and I’m hustling through the local outlet mall, trying to find a rain jacket and a fleece pullover. Never mind that I have to be at the airport in just a few hours, for some reason rainwear is surprisingly difficult to find in the summer, even in Western Washington. Luckily, 3 discounted blue items later (da ba de…) from Columbia and The North Face, and we’re off to catch a plane. I’m not sure why I waited until today to buy the remaining supplies I needed. After all, I’ve known for a full 9 days that we were flying to southeast Alaska (read: 368 days of rain per year). Yeah, 9 days notice.

Sure I get planning ahead is nice, but where’s the fun in that? One of the perks of having flexible careers is the ability to amend our schedules with short notice. For example, if I’m doing my monthly perusal of flight deals on my Alaska Airlines app and notice flights to Juneau and Ketchikan are on sale for 5,000 miles all month, I’ll frantically call my wife and say, “Hey, want to go to Alaska next week?”

Here Comes the Rain Again

So here we go, hopping a late-evening flight out of Seatac to Juneau, where the forecast is calling for torrential downpours, or as they call it in SE Alaska, “summer.” We chose to not rent a car this trip ($arm $leg), so the shuttle for the airport Super 8 (beggars can’t be choosers) was waiting at the curb when we landed around 10pm. The next morning, a gray but dry morning greeted us as we strolled a half-mile to the bus stop and joined the queue of commuters heading into town. Juneau has an incredibly convenient transit system, with routes that reach nearly every major point of interest or important location around the area.

Approaching town, the rain was moving in, but through the mist I could still glimpse 3 large cruise ships at their berth. August is prime cruising season in Alaska, because the only thing more fun than exploring in the rain is doing it in close quarters with 4,500 strangers; the major ports often host 3-7 ships daily across all the major cruise providers (including Disney). *Pro tip: when planning a visit, reference the local port schedules to see which days are expecting greater numbers. Find the Juneau schedule here*. Disembarking the bus, we dashed a couple blocks in the drizzle for a morning warm-up at a pop-up location of Alaskan Crepe Escape, cheersing it with a sausage breakfast crepe and the “Monkey Business” featuring peanut butter, bananas and Nutella.

Uptown Girl (and Guy)

The compact downtown features a diverse mix of shops, local businesses and foodie hangouts. Once the cruise ships unload for the day, the crowds on the street swell immensely, so the more you can do first thing in the morning or later in the evening, the better. Our jackets might have been wet, but our spirits were not dampened, so we spent the greater part of the day wandering through town, marveling at the cascades spilling down the mountains towering to the north, and equally agape at the size of the cruise ships at the wharf. Fun finds included a copy of Nelson’s Trafalgar from the aptly-named Rainy Retreat Books plus pats on the head for the goodest boy patiently waiting for his owner outside. Back by the cruise pier, Frost + Fur offered a cozy welcome and even cozier clothing, such as the screen-printed pullover featuring the owner’s original art of the fleet of Alaskan ferries. Next door at Hearthside Books, we were smitten by locally-authored The Bear in the Blueberry, which we brought home for our (at the time) unborn little one, who ironically now is obsessed with berries.

Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch

For food, we had a progressive lunch, starting with a pulled pork sandwich, a bowl of chili and a cherry grapefruit hard seltzer at the Alaskan Brewing Public House. In the covered pavilion, raucous groups dried out and downed pints poured as heavily as the rain outside. A mad dash through the puddles took us back to Devil’s Club Brewing, home to such specialties as the Rainforest Mixed Culture Saison and the Jellyfish Fields Jelly Donut Ale. Cruise crowds or not, Devil’s Club packs to the gills with eager imbibers and their rowdy friends. Après-bière, lunch 2.0 was halibut tacos and sockeye salmon tots from Deckhand Dave’s, one of the spots from our travels of which I still daydream today.

Rain be damned, we decided to continue our afternoon with a leisurely walk along the Gold Creek Flume Trail north of town. The water was roaring, not just in the swollen Gold Creek, but in the numerous washouts over the trail courtesy of waterfalls high above. Looping back into town, we tied a bow on the day with a fruited sour sipped in the company of the resident feline at Barnaby Brewing Co., before catching the bus back to our motel.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Morning brought pleasantly sunny skies, clouds shooed away like that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the illustrator admonishes the “bloody weather” disrupting his introduction to Sir Lancelot. Jumping the first bus we could, our goal was to beat the cruise crowds up the iconic Goldbelt Tram. We first braved the line at The Rookery Cafe, and noshed on the Breakfast Sando and the phenomenal Eggs Benedang, featuring a buttermilk fried chicken thigh, grilled ham, poached eggs and hollandaise. Then it was off to the tram station!

Initially discouraged by fog obscuring the top, and warily eyeing the trickle of cruisers walking the gangway, we scored a 60-passenger tram all to ourselves as the fog began to break, leading to a stunning motion-picture experience out the back window of the ships and harbor rapidly fading below as we climbed. Climbing 1,800 feet in 6 minutes, the tram leads to a restaurant, theater and store, plus trail access points and viewpoints. A little pricey, the Goldbelt Tram is now accessible only via an all-day, unlimited ride pass that runs $55 for adults and $40 for children ages 3-12.

At the top, we spent the next several hours on the upper portion of the Mt. Roberts Trail, with some of the most incredible views I’ve experienced on a hike. In the first section straight out the tram station, vantage points at 2,000’ up offer sweeping views both directions down Gastineau Channel. Higher still, and as the trail turns farther inland, enjoy absolutely mesmerizing alpine views along the slopes of Roberts Peak, with miles of valleys, snowfields, waterfalls and trees. Along our hike, we were treated to several rotund marmots sunning themselves (forget “Fat Bear Week,” I want “Thicc Marmot Week”), grouse rushing about, and a family of mountain goats sauntering away in the distance. No word if any of the marmots were named Alan or Steve. We hiked a total of 4.6 miles with 1653′ feet of elevation gain over the course of about 3 hours.

Afternoon Delish

Back at sea level, we satiated our growling stomachs with beef and potato dumplings drowning in a delicious sauce at Pel’meni, some of the best comfort food I’ve had during our travels. With full bellies the next stop was the beautiful tasting room of Amalga Distillery, home to a rotating menu of cocktails, plus canned options to-go. I could not leave without a pack of Spruce Collins, a medley of Juneauper Gin, lemon and spruce tips. Come to think of it, I probably should go back and buy more, because one sounds lovely right now.

With a few hours left until sundown, we hopped the bus across Gastineau Channel to wander the Treadwell Mine Ruins, with numerous mining relics and building remnants from what was at one time the largest hard rock gold mine in the world, extracting over 3 million troy ounces of gold between 1881 and 1922. Today, visitors can walk where streets once stretched, now marked by a handful of interpretive signs.

Cold As Ice

On our final morning, after a quick and simple cafe breakfast near the airport, we rode the bus as far as we could toward the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, covering the final 1.5 mile stretch of road on foot, which allowed me to recreate the iconic scene from The Office in which Michael Scott and the others run toward a radar speed sign. My top speed of 16mph may have bested Dwight Schrute’s 13, but I still fell a bit short of the arterial speed limit. Arriving by 9:30 a.m., we had once again beaten the majority of the cruise ship crowds, and spent the next 2 hours wandering the trails, admiring the glacier, perusing the visitor center and snapping a great waterfall photo for our Christmas card near the base of Nugget Falls. The Trail of Time provided a beautiful array of fungi enjoying the aftermath of summer rains, while the boardwalk along Steep Creek offered great viewing areas of vibrant red spawning salmon, plus a porcupine asleep in a tree.

Back down the road, we cut into the woods at the Dredge Lakes Trailhead, crisscrossing the young forest and admiring glassy lakes. Beaver dams and the recent rains both led to some areas of trail being impassable due to water. As the trail ended at the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station, we spotted another bus stop, from which we made the quick jaunt to Forbidden Peak Brewery, home of the Cranrazz Lager, Yuzu Blonde and Red Spruce Ale. With harbor views and skies beginning to cloud, we toasted the final moments of our time in Juneau; first thing the next morning, we were back at the airport, ready to catch the quick jump to Ketchikan.