Posted: 8/17/2015 12:10:23 PM EDT
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I have been up to visit your great state 7 times. Unfortunately this time I am being put on a boat for the duration.
Seems we will be departing Whittier on the 29th and doing the Princess thing down to Vancouver. Any suggestions for a short visit in Skagway, Juneau, or Ketchikan? These are places the boat will be stopping. |
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The White Pass and Yukon railway in Skagway is supposed to be very cool. I have never done it though
The tram to the top of Mt. Roberts (I think that is the name) in Juneau is neat. Even if the weather isn't great, taking the tram up and seeing the Tinglit (Klink-it) history and presentations is well worth it. Plus they have a bald eagle you can get up close with. Downtown Juneau is kind of neat but look at the label on most of the Alaskan crafts and you will see the made in china sticker. There is a little perogoie (or gnochi) place down on the water that is a hole in the wall but was very good. Ive only been to Ketchikan once and don't remember much If by chance you stop in Sitka, go out to Totem park. Well worth the trip |
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Some things you can do in Juneau, only stop I know much about since I live here. We have the Mendenhall Glacier think you can grab a discounted tour bus (old school bus) ride to the Glacier for $6 (one way? MGT tours). Right now there is a decent chance of seeing a black bear or two at the glacier since the salmon are running in the near by creek. There are also some nature trails and such at the Glacier that are a pretty easy hike. Mt. Roberts tram is a little spendy ($50 for an adult?) but as UAF said you can see an bald eagle up close, there are some trails you can hike around on and get a feel for alpine conditions in Southeast Alaska. Also a beautiful view on a decent day. The dumpling place is Pel Meni and it's in the Merchants Warf downtown (where the tour ships come in).
We have a zip line company or two operating out of Juneau, never done that so can't say if it's any good. Anyway a few more ideas for Juneau. I hope the weather is nice for your trip! |
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Quoted:
Some things you can do in Juneau, only stop I know much about since I live here. We have the Mendenhall Glacier think you can grab a discounted tour bus (old school bus) ride to the Glacier for $6 (one way? MGT tours). Right now there is a decent chance of seeing a black bear or two at the glacier since the salmon are running in the near by creek. There are also some nature trails and such at the Glacier that are a pretty easy hike. Mt. Roberts tram is a little spendy ($50 for an adult?) but as UAF said you can see an bald eagle up close, there are some trails you can hike around on and get a feel for alpine conditions in Southeast Alaska. Also a beautiful view on a decent day. The dumpling place is Pel Meni and it's in the Merchants Warf downtown (where the tour ships come in). We have a zip line company or two operating out of Juneau, never done that so can't say if it's any good. Anyway a few more ideas for Juneau. I hope the weather is nice for your trip! I forgot about the glacier, I have seen it many times, always enjoyable And we have seen bears numerous times there as well I can't believe that the tram is up to $50, ouch Last time we went it was like $32 which I thought was a lot,but worth it |
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Thanks for the info so far.
I have been up there for work and vacation before but never on the inside passage area (except one trip to Juneau for work). Most of my time has been in Anchorage, Fairbanks, or some place in between. I fully expect it to rain most of the trip and be in the 50's. Last time I was in Anchorage at the first of Sept, it rained every day. |
| Oh, when I did go to Juneau, I spent one night there (most of the time out on an island) and walked to some gun store very close to the airport. The owner was older and had a phenomenal mixture of odd firearms and some nice class 3. I also paid a local taxi for a 1 hour tour so she ran me all over the place. She had lived there for over 20 years and seemed to know a lot about the area and its history. Interesting place... |
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Quoted:
Thanks for the info so far. I have been up there for work and vacation before but never on the inside passage area (except one trip to Juneau for work). Most of my time has been in Anchorage, Fairbanks, or some place in between. I fully expect it to rain most of the trip and be in the 50's. Last time I was in Anchorage at the first of Sept, it rained every day. Its been raining and in the 50s in Fairbanks 
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In Skagway be sure to visit the Wells Fargo, probably the coolest branch of a bank I've ever been in, old time money machines, old bar type gold pieces, if you take some silver dollars(I had a Morgan) you can use the counting machine to count money out.
The Ace hardware is the firearms dealer for town and well the 1800 dollar FN5-7 was kind of alarming, but I cant imagine that there is much business in that town. There is a cool old cabin made up like the one jack London lived in you can look at, basically Skagway is about 1 mile by 2 miles, and a road out of it to Canada up a killer steep road. seriously. There is a pretty neat bar in down town but basically the whole town is built on taking tourist money so be warned. |
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Oh, when I did go to Juneau, I spent one night there (most of the time out on an island) and walked to some gun store very close to the airport. The owner was older and had a phenomenal mixture of odd firearms and some nice class 3. I also paid a local taxi for a 1 hour tour so she ran me all over the place. She had lived there for over 20 years and seemed to know a lot about the area and its history. Interesting place... I don't know how long ago you were here, but Rayco Sales was a gun shop near the airport run by an old guy. He lost his FFL recently, so they no longer sell firearms, just a bunch of accessories, surplus stuff, random stuff, etc. There is a new place called Juneau Mercantile and Armory that opened up within the last year, has their own indoor range, and quite a few firearms. They also do machine gun "tours", so you can shoot some machineguns if you want (and have a wad of cash to blow). I'm not sure about any other gun shops near the airport. |
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It was three years ago this fall that I was in Juneau. The store had a bunch of "accessories" so I bet it was the same place. I can't imagine the effort it took to sell all the firearms. That's a shame though, he seemed like a nice guy.
No MG rentals for me. I have those here at home to play with. Thanks for the other suggestions. I have to assume Skagway is just like Virginia City in Nevada - tourist trap made to separate you from your money. Hopefully we will get a few days with no rain and the temp up to 60. |
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It was three years ago this fall that I was in Juneau. The store had a bunch of "accessories" so I bet it was the same place. I can't imagine the effort it took to sell all the firearms. That's a shame though, he seemed like a nice guy. No MG rentals for me. I have those here at home to play with. Thanks for the other suggestions. I have to assume Skagway is just like Virginia City in Nevada - tourist trap made to separate you from your money. Hopefully we will get a few days with no rain and the temp up to 60. I imagine he ended up with a bunch of them as personal property. He had a sale for about 2 months, where most guns were 10% off. I overheard a couple of the guys who worked there talking about how they thought he might cut prices by half to get something out of them the days just prior to losing the licnese. I stopped in just about every day for the last week or so. He dropped them to maybe 15 or 20%, but they were still expensive. On the last day I saw that the shelves were still pretty full. |
| I've been in a bunch of times to look at stuff to kill some time. It always seemed to be a bit sketchy. He was found not guilty recently, but I guess the ATF had already pulled his license. Not sure if he lost the license due to the trial, or maybe just really bad record keeping, or something else. |
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Guys,
Thanks for the input and info in general. We completed the cruise last week. I have decided my wife is the weather God for AK. We had just a tiny bit of rain on Sunday at Glacier Bay. Tues it was "cool" at 45ish in Skagway but it was sunny. Every other day, up to and in including Sat, the sun was out and the temp hit the mid 60's or higher. In 2008 when she was last up there with me, we went 8 days in early Sept with one day of rain and even got a rainbow in Denali without getting wet. Cruises still are not my favorite way to be on vacation and glaciers just are not that beautiful to me but it beat the shit out of going to work and I am glad I can say I have seen more of SE AK now. On a side note, I hate the fact Obummer was up there while I was. However it was kinda nice since I did not see hardly any news while I was there so I missed all his BS and lies on the TV. |