Wow!! Today was a busy day. Mattie’s son had a friend from college that lives in Juneau and he is the director of port activities for the cruise ships that are in the bay daily. He got us complimentary tickets for the helicopter tour to Mendenhall Glacier and the sled dog teams. They fly you to the glacier and land on top of it. There are about 240 dogs with sleds that are camped out on the glacier all the time in the summer. They put 3 people and the dog handler to a team of 8 to 10 dogs and take you on about a 2 mile trip across the glacier. It is amazing how fast the dogs pull the sleds. I was in the back of the helicopter so I couldn’t get the best pictures but I at least got some.
Twila and I had to ride in different helicopters. She’s in this one and we are following it. We did get to ride on the same sled however and Twila got to ride in front.
The dog handlers actually live on the glacier in tents. They said the temperature dropped 40 degrees as soon as the sun dropped below the mountains. Our driver, Matt, said it wasn’t a problem for them that they were used to it. He was 19 years old and said he had been behind a sled since he was 1 year old. He had 30 dogs up on the ice this summer and he said he and his parents owned 63 dogs.
This is another sled but you can see that it is actually 2 sleds. On our sled, Matt was running the front sled and I and another man were able to take turns on the back of the last sled just like you would if you were really operating the sled. I could see how you could really get into sledding in the winter and of course in the small towns, sledding and snowmobiling is the only way to get around most of the time in the winter.
We also took the tram ride up a mountain in downtown Juneau and a trip out to the Shrine of St Therese but I will talk about that tomorrow. I will just put some pictures taken from the air. They had to be taken through the glass so some have a little glare but I hope you enjoy them.
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