July 11 – There was only one ship in town
today and there was something we wanted to do that was only available on
Fridays, so we went into town. The weather was once again excellent - sunny
and warm. We started out at the visitor’s center to get updated information
and some suggestions on other things to do. The volunteer gave us some trail
maps and a great tip on the Mt. Roberts Tramway, a suspended cable car that
goes to a great viewing point on Mt. Roberts. We had been planning on
riding the tramway and shelling out $21.95 each for the privilege since there
were movie presentations and hiking trails up there, but she told us that we
could hike up the city maintained trail (“it’s like 20 minutes or so”) and see
all the exhibits for free and then ride the tram down for $5.00 – such a deal!
With an armload of maps we left the visitor’s center and headed to our first
destination, the State office building, 8th floor. On display in
the atrium was a 1920’s Kimball theater pipe organ. It was given to the State
and fully restored so that all could enjoy it. The organ was originally built
for and used in a movie theater in Juneau. It is reported to be the oldest
working organ still in the city it was built for. Every Friday at noon there
was a concert and Dave can never pass up a pipe organ concert. In true, laid
back, Alaska fashion the organist arrived at 12:15 and after arranging his
sheet music brought the beast to life. The 45 minute concert was a
delightful
mix of songs ranging from organ classics such as Bach’s toccata and fugue in D
Minor to the theme from the Muppet Show. Other songs included the Entertainer,
Morning Has Broken (a hymn), the Mickey Mouse Theme, It’s a Small World, and
Both Sides Now (Judy Collins). While walking around before the concert we had
noticed a hole in the wall (literally) Mexican restaurant and after the concert
we went there to eat (actually, it was a hole in the floor as it was in a
basement). Our Mexican restaurant rule proved itself again as the food was
very good. After lunch we went found an internet place and transmitted a bunch
of eagerly awaited web pages.
Our final event of the day was to climb Mt.
Roberts and then enjoy the amenities. As we navigated Juneau’s narrow and
hilly streets on foot to get to the trailhead we noticed on the hiking map that
Mt. Roberts was over 5,000 feet high and that the trail was over 5 miles long.
This would not be a simple 20 minute hike. When we reached the trailhead a
sign eased our fears, indicating that the
tramway station was a mere
2 miles away. With this knowledge in hand we started on the trail, which led
north, not south towards the tramway. The trail map indicated that the trail
was “more difficult” with the steepness eased by a series of switchbacks. We
should have remembered that the “mountain goat trail” on Sitka was a ‘more
difficult’. This trail was like that trail, except that it went on for 2
miles. After about an hour and twenty minutes we heard civilization and reached
the tramway. We had climbed 1,700 feet. The Indian movie was excellent,
definitely presenting an Indian view on things. We also saw a very informative
documentary on brown bears at the nature center. We were also delighted to see
signs which
said that hikers who made more than $5 worth of purchases
could ride down for free, so we headed for the restaurant and ordered up a
pitcher of our favorite Alaskan Amber. Since we there and we didn’t feel like
grocery shopping we stayed for dinner. Stacie had an exotic Salmon club
sandwich. Dave had an exotic hamburger. After enjoying the view, we ambled
over to the tram station and caught a free ride down. From the station we
trekked through downtown and to the truck for the 15 minute drive to the campsite.
We were going to sit by the campfire and complain about sore legs, but we were
too tired and went to bed. At least we had managed to stay up until 9:30 this
time.
July 12 – We awoke to another clear,
sunny day. Most locals have been amazed at the weather and are having to water
their lawns. In fact, there have been reports of small forest fires starting
from people carelessly burning garbage. Our information indicated that there
were two cruise ships in town, but the folks at the tram had told us that they
were expecting at least six (but not all big ones). We expected the Macaulay
Salmon Hatchery to be packed with bus loads of cruisers so we decided to save
it for another day and to start the day in town at the Last Chance Mining
Museum
since it was small and the roads that led to it could not handle busses. On
our way into to town we passed the hatchery and saw that there were no buses
and only 2 cars in the parking lot so we pulled in. As it turns out, we had
arrived only a few minutes after they opened. We started touring the facility
on our own when a guide came by and asked us if we wanted a tour. We said yes
and then he took us outside and lumped us in with a load of people from a bus
that had just arrived. Fortunately, the guide had a microphone and we were
able to hear everything. After the tour group invaded the gift shop, we went
back and did the tour on our own and saw young seal trying in vain to catch a
salmon. Salmon are unique in that they have a way of memorizing the “smell” of
the freshwater stream that they hatched in and when it comes time in their life
to spawn (and then die afterwards) they will leave the ocean and find that
stream again (most of the time). The hatchery sits on the shore, but is about
25 feet above sea level (at low tide) so they have a fish ladder so the salmon
can get back up into the hatchery. Once in the hatchery they will have their
eggs and sperm extracted
(to start the next
generation) instead of being allowed to spawn naturally. This process results
in a 90+% success rate as opposed to the 3 to 5% seen in the wild. The fish
ladder was absolutely jam packed with salmon! In an effort to get even farther
they would jump out of the water, hoping to land in an area suitable for
spawning (salmon need slow moving water with a gravel bottom). All of the fish
waiting in the
ladder were not yet sexually mature, so the hatchery was
not yet taking them in (they expected to start in about 10 days). The hatchery
also had a collection of aquariums with most of the local sea life inside and
pictures with info on each critter. It was nice to place names with what we
had been seeing while kayaking. After the tour group departed we stopped in
the gift shop. Stacie sampled some exotic smoked salmon dip and Dave asked if
there were exotic hamburger samples (no luck). While there Stacie purchased a
souvenir pin for her backpack – she’s been getting at least one in each city we
visit and is developing quite a collection. As we walked down the ramp towards
the parking lot Dave suddenly stopped and turned his head. Then, in a salmon
like manner, he vaulted all obstacles in his way to find the freshly popped
popcorn he detected.
We took our popcorn to go and headed for the
mining museum. When we arrived we remembered that they had eclectic hours –
open from 9:30 to 12:30 and then again from 3:30 to 6:30. It was noon and we
realized that half an hour would not be enough. Luckily we had a back up plan
– our friends from the Alaskan Brewing Company who make the Alaskan Amber we
cherish. The brewery was nearby (by Alaskan standards) so we headed out
there. Much to our dismay there was a tour bus in the parking lot and the
little brewery was overflowing with cruisers. We waited in a back corner until
they had been rounded up and herded back onto their
bus. We then asked about a tour and were invited to join some other folks
waiting at the tasting bar. As we were enjoying sample number three of their
six brews a tour was announced (actually the bartender topped off everyone’s
drink and said, “Let’s take a tour!”). The amount of information conveyed to
us in that half hour was amazing. We learned about everything from the
founding of the company in 1986 to where their beer recipe came from to a crash
course in hops and barley (including tasting malted barley). It took us the
last three samples to digest it all and follow up with questions. The
bartender/guide was incredibly knowledgeable and even talked at length about
non-beer related things like life in Juneau. They didn’t have any souvenir
pins, but we did get a few things from the gift shop. While our host would
have gladly poured us sample after sample (you didn’t get seconds but you could
“revisit” a brew you had already tasted), we had a mining museum to explore so
we headed back into town.
The museum is located on the grounds of the
old Jualpa mine camp, one of several operated by the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining
Company (the picture is from 1916). While the mine is in a valley along Gold
Creek (which feeds Juneau’s reservoir) you have to drive up thru a hilly
residential area on some really narrow streets and then on a wooden one lane
bridge which puts you on a dirt road that runs up the valley. We arrived at
the parking area at a little after 3pm and since the
museum didn’t reopen until
3:30, we pulled out the cookstove and heated up some soup for lunch. With our
bellies full we headed down the path and crossed the footbridge over Gold Creek
to the museum grounds. There was a mini-bus load of tourists panning for gold
in the creek. We hope they were having fun because they weren’t finding any
gold. The museum was inside the old air compressor building for the mine
(perhaps the last gold rush era mining building still standing) and featured the
original Ingersoll-Rand air compressor. Said to be the world’s largest
Ingersoll-Rand air
compressor, this brute produced 3,400 cubic feet of air a
minute at 100 psi of pressure. In layman’s terms that’s roughly a school bus
full of compressed air every minute. The museum was run by the local
historical society and while they had a great wealth of objects, there were few
labels or descriptions so the only way you could really grasp everything that
was there was to ask the caretaker (who lives in the building to thwart
vandals) to go around with you. After touring the building we walked the
grounds which used to have several maintenance buildings for the trams (trains)
as well as a bunkhouse and cookhouse. Over time most of these buildings have
burned down (the work vandals) or collapsed. A hoary marmot poked its head out
of a window in a fallen wall to greet us. We followed what was left of the
original
mine tram track to a collapsed shaft entrance on one end and to a sealed tunnel
entrance on the other. The mining company operated several mines in the area
and had blasted tunnels into the surrounding hills to allow them to transport
the ore from each mine to a large processing plant on the shore (on the
hillside under where the Mt. Roberts tramway operates today). There were pieces
and parts of old mine trams rusting away in the remains of the switchyard. We
hope that in time they will find the resources to push back the forest and
protect or restore the trams so that visitors can truly understand the whole
mining process. We left the museum as it closed and then headed to the grocery
store to refill our empty cooler.