We also started the process for our wedding album. It was no small task organizing the 1300+ pictures and cutting it back to the suggested 55 needed for the album. But we got that done and only have to wait 6 weeks (!) to see the first proof. We also, finally, got the claims process started for all the broken furniture. The guy came in last week to assess the furniture. We got our new grill and our twin bed built today. We're supposed to be getting a new bookcase, but the guy can't find one similar. Couch got fixed, dresser and bike to be fixed, and mattress to get cashed out. All other small items got cashed out too.
We had explored downtown some while it was raining. Downtown is an experience! Think: San Francisco hills on crack. There was one hill we went down that our safety lock seat belts were actually holding us into our seats! It's crazy - I love it!
Towards the end of the week, the rain finally stopped! And it even stayed clear over the entire weekend! On Saturday, after running some errands and attempting to buy crab again with no success, we decided to try Perseverance Trail which started downtown. We heard it was one of the most popular trails, so we checked it out. Shortly after the trail begun we came across this:
We thought that we had to go through this door-thing to continue on the trail and were slightly taken aback. Until we got a little closer and noticed the trail continued to the left. Perseverance Trail follows the old ore mines from the early 1900's. This was an old mine entrance. We walked a little inside until Eric saw the sign "High Voltage" and then left. But the temperature difference surrounding this doorway was pretty amazing. There was at least a 20 degree drop!
After continuing through the lush green forest, the trail opened up to a valley filled with waterfalls streaming down the mountains. There are 3 small ones leading into the larger one in this picture, hard to see in the small picture. (I think if you click on the picture it will expand in a new browser or tab.)
A little further down the trail, we came to an even larger waterfall! It was beautiful and powerful!
After that, the trail started getting forest-y again. We arrived to this bridge over the roaring waters and it was amazing! This picture does not do this area justice. The waters were so loud that Eric and I couldn't even hear each other speak! This was my favorite area on the trail.
Perseverance Trail itself is only about 2 miles long, we decided to continue on to the Glory Hole Overlook which from the map didn't look that far away. By the time we got there, I was pretty tired. It wound up being about a 3.5 mile trek with a 700 ft increase in elevation. While that doesn't sound too bad, it was a constant incline in trail. With all the rain the week before we hadn't gotten a lot of exercise, so I was huffing and puffing. Below is the glory hole.
Or the big hole they blasted out of the mountain - probably for gold. There was a whole town built in this area for the mining back around the 1920's and today there's not even a single trace of it. It's amazing how it hasn't even been 100 years and you would've never known a town ever existed there. The trail was loads of fun, and once we left Perseverance Trail there was not one other person on our trail or in sight. It felt like we were completely alone in the beauty of the mountains.
On Sunday we got invited to join another Pharmacist, his fiance, and their friends in from Sitka, on the West Glacier Trail - which obviously ran on the west side of Mendenhall Glacier. Sounded like fun, but I was afraid since we had hiked 7 miles the day before, that I wouldn't be able to hike too long with these guys who've lived in Alaska for months! I asked Eric if he could slack it up a little bit so I didn't look like the loser. :) Once Eric checked the stats on this trail, he found that it was another 7 mile round trip trail, but this one had an elevation increase of 1300 ft. - double yesterday's...
I agreed anyway because we had planned to do a hike that day and this way we got to socialize more. But since we were going in our own car, we could turn around at any point. The first mile or so of the trail was flat... which was great for my sore legs.. but made me worry about what was still to come. Now instead of 1300 ft. in 7 miles, it was now 1300 ft. in 5.5 ish. Until we reached this:
The hike turned more into a rock climb. But better a rock climb than a steep hill! It was fun, and shortly after that we arrived at this view:
That's the middle of the glacier, not the bottom nor the top. There were a few waterfalls around the glacier that were in fuller force than when we had visited in March. The mountain across the glacier apparently has mountain goats often. We took out our binoculars (Thanks Twan!) and searched... but found nothing. At this point, one of the girls seemed exhausted and wanted to turn back. WHAT? I wasn't even tired and we had hiked 7 miles the day before! I was ecstatic! :) We convinced her to go a little more, but that was it. I like hiking with these folks! I am not the first one to want to turn back. I guess that's because I usually hike with Eric, and back in the day his brother, who could hike 15 miles a day and still want to keep going. So this was a nice surprise!
After the hike we headed home for lunch and a little break before going out to attempt fishing again. Before fishing, we decided to stop along Salmon creek, where the day before we had seen tons of people and birds around this area. Perhaps the salmon were spawning? Yup! What a sight to see! I think this may be one of the best things we've seen/done in Juneau so far. This is definitely something to see in your lifetime. There were hundreds and hundreds of salmon in super shallow water swimming against the current to find their spawning spot. The water was so shallow in some areas that the fish were almost entirely out of the water, swimming on the water surface just to get closer to where they wanted to be.
Where the water was a little deeper, the water was so clear you could just see the groups of them holding their ground against the current. Eagles were everywhere, snatching fish from the water to eat. The fish were so pretty. They had tiger-like stripes of emerald green and maroon, which you can kind of see in the above picture. These are called Chum Salmon and are normally silver. They change colors when they're spawning.
Take a good look at this picture. It really doesn't do it's justice as to what we experienced. But if you notice every speck, splash and dot - each of them is a fish. You could just look up the stream and see the salmon everywhere! It was so cool, words can't really experience how awed I was by this spectacle.After spending a good chunk of time at Salmon Creek, we headed down the road to attempt fishing. Shortly after we got there we noticed that everyone was pulling out fish. But, a bunch we're throwing them back. Hmm.. so now we needed to find out why. They were catching the Chum Salmon (or the spawning ones) and while we don't know for sure, I think it's illegal to kill them, but we've also heard that since they are full of fish eggs and on their way to die - that they don't taste very good. We met a woman who told us to put fish eggs on our hook and that we'd catch more (so since she killed one, maybe it isn't illegal?). She put them straight in my hand.. kinda slimy, kinda squishy, but not too bad. It was odd though...
After Eric attempting (I wasn't up to the fishing, but was happy to keep him company) a few times with no luck, he realized he had the wrong hook. So we went to the grocery store to get the ones we needed, headed home for dinner, and then back out to try the new hook. Once we got back we found the eagles swarming all over the area to eat up the scraps left behind by the earlier fisherman. Although a little blurry, I really like this picture. Since the sun was low, and since I'm still learning my new camera, I didn't have it on the best setting. But this guy is sitting on a fish head and was eating away at it until I approached him.
For those of you who don't know, this is a bald eagle. But bald eagles don't go 'bald' until about 5 years of age. You can see this guy's starting to go white.The new hooks were a success! ...kind of...
Eric caught a fish!! Can you see it at the shore line? Can you also see the tiger-like stripes? Yup it's a Chum. Damn. Can't eat it. A few more like this before it got too dark to really see what we were catching. So we at least know that we can catch fish now! We just need to start catching fish we can actually eat. :)In other news, we've seen 5 bears in 5 days!! All from the living room - we LOVE our house! We met a few people over the weekend who have been here for 8 months or so and still haven't seen one. We've seen 12 now? We've lost count. I've stopped naming them because most of the bears we only see for like 30 seconds, so I can't distinguish if they are new guys or oldies. It's taken me another 10 bears or so to be able to snap a picture because they move so fast and I even keep my camera on the windowsill. But this morning one sat out our window for a solid 5 minutes and I was able to finally get some good ones!
He (or She) was a big one! Did I mention how much we love our house?! :)
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