We promised ourselves that as soon as the sky starting looking blue we would grab a float plane and head for the glaciers. Saturday it happened. We had watched the Celebration parade and shot tons of pixand now we made our move. The float plane trips are booked at a little log cabin on the dock, right by the planes docking spaces. There are two trips: the 5 glacier flight, which we took, and the Taku Lodge salmon feast flight, which we did not. It was quite a bit more money, and possibly fewer glaciers. Glaciers per dollar is the benchmark here.

There was a hour wait, and we walked up the hill in town and found a little place which offered 1/2 of a BLT and a coke: that’s heaven for me. Our plane was waiting when we got back, but it was overbooked. The planes seat 5 and the pilot, but weight is an issue, and they had booked 6 people. So two were offered a T-shirt to wait 20 minutes for the next flight, and we 4 who survived the selection went down to the plane.



I sat co,-pilot, which meant better views.



My camera has a “behind glass” setting which I used, and it seemed to work. We started off sliding on top of the water, after a bit the pilot boosted the throttle a bit and we were up and away, gaining altitude as we moved down the Gastineau Strait. Below us a cruise ship crept up the water towards its dock in Juneau. Snow covered mountains were visible on all sides, glittering in the sunlight. It was beautiful.

The plane took a left turn just before the Taku River and began to fly up a mountain pass. Shades of Indiana Jones. The co-pilot seat view looked like we would not clear the pass,



Glaciers are more interesting in the abstract than in the actual, considered per-se. But from the plane the views were breathtaking. Something that attracted my attention were the blue ponds that formed on top of the glacier.

PHOTO BLUE PONDS

The glacier ice fractures along stress lines as it is forced down the valley, making patterns visible from above. Below on the flood plain of the Taku were two streams, one purple and one milky blue. You’ll have to take my word for it because the photo is too blurry.



This flight lasted under 1 hour, and some of that was spent getting too and returning from the Taku river where the glaciers were, but it was an incredible time. The scenery was unrelentingly wonderful, and there’s something exciting about flying in a small plane.You can also see the glaciers from helicopters, which will land on the Mendenhall Glacier and on some top of the line trips (think $350 per person for 1 hour) let you sit in a dog sled for a minute or two. On our Mendenhall trip (more later) the air was abuzz with helicopters coming and going – it seemed like Sohum during the harvest raids by CAMP in the 1980s. I can’t compare the helicopter with the float plane directly, but I think the plane trip will prove to be the more satisfactory.