Juneau: Day o' Glaciers

While we did not see Russia from our house balcony upon arriving in Juneau like Sarah Palin said we would, we did see several amazing glaciers.  Our second day in Alaska started at 5:30am when we cruised through the Tracy Arm fjord up to the Sawyer glacier.  It was gorgeous at every turn of the corner, totally worth getting out of bed for.  We spent the morning wrapped in blankets sipping cocoa and coffee, reading on our balcony and watching the world pass by.

Glacial ice loses its bright blue color several days after breaking off; this ice block is approx. 5 days old

The Sawyer Glacier - the cruise ship got SO close! 

Bundled up with a book and beautiful vistas

When we finally arrived in Juneau we helicoptered up to the Mendenhall glacier where we spent the afternoon hiking the glacier with guides for several hours. Our ride to the glacier was unbelievably beautiful; we saw waterfalls, mountain goats, a suicide glacier. We even had good enough visibility to fly over the ice field that feeds the glacier (apparently that almost never happens.) Flying over the ice field was like seeing the surface of the moon, I literally gasped at its size and splendor. Once we landed and were outfitted with cramp-ons for our boots, ice picks, helmets and harnesses we set off to explore the glacier.

Thums up, aka before I thought I might lose my lunch on the helicopter

There's a glacial stream flowing below us, hence why we are walking on the sides of the ice - not easy for shorties like me!

Cold, delicious glacier water

Everything really is bigger in Texas Alaska

The start of an ice cave/canyon

At the edge of a 1,000 ft. deep crevice...I was terrified.

I hope you enjoyed our pictures, we took literally a hundred that day.  I'll share pictures from Skagway and Victoria, B.C. this week, rounding out our trip.  I hope you all had wonderful weekends!