Green Light Over the Ocean: Day Seventeen on the Alaska Road Trip

Today we traveled on the Alaska Marine Highway.

Jane at the stern.

“Wait, but I thought you were on the ferry!” you say. You are correct! The ferry is considered part of the highway system in Southeast Alaska because there’s no other way to get your car around. No roads exist to the towns at which we stopped today: Juneau (where we began last night), Wrangell, Petersburg, and Ketchikan (the last city in Southeast Alaska).

The shoreline of Wrangell (I think).

Funny, rounded mountain peaks behind the town.

I was thrilled to be back on the ferry. I first traveled on this beautiful ship three years ago on the Senior Alaska Trip. In February and March of my senior year, 60 of my best friends and I embarked on a two-week expedition (with many teachers keeping watch) through Yukon, Whitehorse, frozen Lake Laberge, the Alaska Marine Highway, and headmaster Rob’s homestead in remote, rain-forested Ketchikan. That trip was the crowning experience of high school, and it was the inspiration for my mom’s and my great road trip north.

Throwback to the 2012 Senior Alaska Trip with my bestie Claire (mermaiding on the left). We rocked the puffy.
Photo credit: Nick Lew.

Nothing on the trip so far took me back as vividly as did this ferry. The yellow-windowed roof of the solarium (the third-level stern deck where hippies and students sleep under the stars in fleece blankets and tarps), the white-washed metal walls of an old but reliable ship, the underpriced vending machines, the old-fashioned magnetic announcement boards, the tinny loudspeaker announcements, and the stocking-footed elderly couples playing dominoes in the freezing Alaskan air because who would want to be inside on a marvelous day like today? None of these things had changed a bit.

Today’s voyage felt very different from the Senior Alaska Trip in many ways, too. For one, we had a cabin. We slept under a roof (or, rather, under other bunk beds) and kept our suitcases behind the safety of a locked door rather than sprawled among strangers. We had our own shower, sink, and toilet, so we weren’t running barefooted and damp across the deck looking for our towels and toothbrushes.

Jane shows off our four-person berth.

But we did spend as much time as possible outside on deck among the duct-taped tents and readers of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. After seeing masses of impatient tourists disembark from cruise ships like Norwegian Star and Pacific Princess in Juneau, we were endlessly grateful to be among the down-to-earth passengers of the Alaska Marine Highway.

Down-to-earth readers of Jack Kerouac in front of the Solarium.

Kids found endless entertainment (driving toy trucks across the deck), as did Jane (spying on birds) and I (spying on the kids). 

One of my favorite things about this ferry route is how we are always close to land on both sides. You can’t get bored with a constantly-refreshing view of forest, rocky shores, tucked-away lighthouses, lookouts, and the occasional house.

Passing landscape.

It’s the best way to bird-watch, too – you sit still, and the ferry glides by birds at just the right speed for you to identify them!

A rocky lighthouse-base swarming with surfbirds and ruddy turnstones.

At one point, a commanding voice spoke over the loud speaker: “This is just a drill.”

Five minutes later: “Code green, a crew member is missing. I repeat, code green, a crew member is missing. Proceed to search patterns.” Dozens of crew members (who weren’t wearing uniforms, so we hadn’t before realized they were crew) assembled to don red life jackets and hustle around the decks.

Then: “Code safe, the crew member has been found. Complete all sweeps, then return to muster station.”

During the afternoon, drills were performed for fire, man overboard, missing crew member, and other emergencies. Every time the alarm bell rang, we had trouble convincing ourselves we should just keep watching the seabirds drift by.

At our stop in Ketchikan, we found the broken-down Columbia, the ferry on which we had originally been scheduled.

The night sky was spectacular, and I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be sleeping directly under it. Clear skies laid bare the Big Dipper, the North Star, and Cassiopeia.

Full moon over the Inside Passage.

Then, the best surprise of all: northern lights. Green curtains of light swept across the sky as if blown by cosmic wind. Bright pillars shot up from the horizon, then dissipated into a soft ocean of shimmering glow. When the lights were at their brightest green, a thin rim of orange formed on the lower edge, and it was simply breathtaking.

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 17 
• Start: Malaspina ferry (Juneau), Alaska, United States 
• Miles traveled: 305 (ferry) 
• Hours driven: 0 
• Favorite bird sighting: surfbirds 
• End: Malaspina ferry (Ketchikan), Alaska, United States

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Whistle Bird and the Art of Pishing: Day Sixteen on the Alaska Road Trip

Today was our bonus day, given to us by the breakdown of our planned ferry, the Columbia. We went birding at Mendenhall Wetlands on EVAR, the Emergency Vehicle Access Road.

Birding by the airport.

It started out about as picturesque as it sounds: airplanes bearing down above our heads, float planes taking off from the “liquid runway” next to the paved one.

The morning sun over the riverbank made for another set of shadow dancers.

Soon, however, we were past the aviation center. We saw savannah sparrows, a northern harrier, great blue herons, dowitchers,  and chestnut-backed chickadees. An iceberg floated out the brackish river, and a harbor seal poked her head above the surface.

Crows pick apart a salmon carcass.

There's a clear difference between a glaucous-winged gull...

... and the mew gull. Doesn't he look like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons?!

Dawww, a baby song sparrow.

Savannah sparrow.

  

Greater yellowlegs.

Dowitchers.

Best birdies of the day... we think we saw six Baird’s sandpipers. (Ornithologists, please comment!)

This looks like the book's description of "silvery with black spots" to me.

Dark gray legs, short black beak.

Marna met up with us for a lunch of tacos and enchiladas on the waterfront, and I got a stupendous surprise: my friend Sarah (we studied abroad together in the Galapagos Islands) was in town! She stayed at my family’s house in Seattle earlier this year, so I was ecstatic to get to see her hometown, too.

Two friends reunited at Sheep Creek.

She took my mom and me up a steep climb to Sheep Creek Ridge through majestic green rainforest and alpine shrubbery. We tasted bitter highbush cranberries, stuck our faces in the creek, and finally turned around at a cottonwood grove.

Jane and Nina in the cottonwood grove.

We rounded one corner and heard a piercing shriek whistle. Sarah, startled, replied with a nearly identical shriek. We looked at each other. What was that?!

Jane started pishing, a birding technique where you say, “PSH PSH PSH!” and the birds (supposedly) emerge from their hiding spots out of curiosity. Suddenly, the whistle bird let out a perfect whistle! A blue Steller’s jay flew right up to us, and two fox sparrows nearly landed at our feet. I guess pishing does work! But the whistle bird never showed herself, and she is still a mystery.

Fox sparrow attracted by our pishing.

Marna served us another delicious dinner of lamb and homemade applesauce. Since our ferry didn’t board til 11:30 pm, Sarah invited us to spend a quiet evening by her fireplace. Sarah’s mom, Sarah, Jane and I had a great time reminiscing about the Amazon Rainforest and discussing their upcoming trip to Ireland in only two days.

Then I got another super surprise: my friend from Whitman and Sweets-co-captain Marlena paid us a visit! Juneau was the best part of our trip so far because we got to see it with locals and reunite with old friends.

At this point the day had grown long (just like this blog post), but we couldn’t sleep yet. We had a ferry to catch! It was a couple hours late, so we waited in line while Jane snoozed and I wrote postcards to the pop radio station.

The day held one surprise for us yet: once on the ferry, we went to the Purser’s Office to determine which cabin was ours.

“I’m sorry,” she told us, “but it looks like you don’t have a cabin on this ship.” Uh oh. Would we be sleeping outside with no sleeping bags or pads? With some pleading and kindness from our understanding purser, we managed to rent a four-berth cabin, just until we arrived in Ketchikan. Good enough – at least we will sleep tonight.

Knock knock.

A half-hour after we went to bed (so around 2 am) the night watchman knocked on our door. “Do you have a red Prius?” he asked.

I’d left the dome light on from writing postcards in the waiting lot. Down to the car deck I went, in my pajamas, to put Prius to bed. Finally, we were ALL tucked in and ready to sleep.

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 16 
• Start: Juneau, Alaska, United States 
• Miles traveled: 50 
• Hours driven: 1 
• Favorite bird sighting: Baird’s sandpiper 
• End: Malaspina ferry (Juneau), Alaska, United States

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Going with the Flow in Juneau: Day Fifteen on the Alaska Road Trip

I would like to begin this blog by highlighting my stupendous mom who made this whole trip possible and amazing and awesome.

Everybody, Jane in two habitats:

Jane birding on Mt. Roberts.

Jane and her alter-ego, the giant hoary marmot.

Thanks for everything, Mom! I love you!

Ok, now for the Day Fifteen update. Juneau was lovely and vital and full of people who seemed really happy to be there. Our friend Marna and her two daughters live in a house on a crooked street in a quirky neighborhood filled with steep hills, flower gardens, dead-ends and staircases. The waterfront, quiet in the morning, soon filled up with four enormous cruise ships, each of which disgorged a thousand passengers onto the quaint downtown streets to shop for jewelry and trinkets.

Jane and Marna on Basin Road.

Marna was impressed by the fast-paced road trip schedule we’d been keeping, so she gave us four different attractions to pack into our day. “My family would take on one of these in a day,” she told us, “but for you guys, no problem!” We started with a walk up Basin Road, a street that soon became a cantilevered wooden track under sheer cliffs of moss and precarious forest.

We then headed down the hill to the waterfront, where we caught the first tram up to Mount Roberts. It’s unbelievable how steeply the mountains rise around Juneau!

Looking down the tram wires from Mt. Roberts.

The network of alpine trails could take a backpacker weeks to explore, so we saw just a snippet with breath-taking views and a handful of shy songbirds. The Lobaria lichens were the lushest, greenest, shiniest, most lung-worty specimens I’ve ever seen!

So green!

Nice ascocarps!

We looked for willow ptarmigans, but instead found another thrush. We should be getting good at these guys by now, but we still can't tell... is she hermit or gray-cheeked?

Birders, what do you think: hermit or gray-cheeked?

We left, before we had seen enough, to catch the 1 pm tour of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) fisheries science building. Compared to dramatic clifftops, touring a government building may sound dull, but I love seeing NOAA labs, and my mom indulged my strange request.

Compared to the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center where I worked this summer in Seattle, the Juneau building was state of the art. A mural of 50 life-sized model fishes from the region adorned the lobby’s wall. Four projectors shone on a globe-shaped screen to give the impression of a rotating earth. We got to watch NOAA’s “Science on a Sphere” presentation about the world and climate change here.

Science on a Sphere and the fish wall.

The wet lab contained touch-tanks of my favorites, including a sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides. The biology and chemistry labs were staffed with friendly, busy scientists, and the lobby’s aquarium contained the largest leather star, Dermasterias imbricata, I’ve ever seen.

Jane examines squid eggs.

Two sculpins, a great (Myoxocephalus polyacanthocephalus) and a buffalo (Enophrys bison), cuddle puddling.

The building is heated by an efficient heat-exchange system that draws energy from the chilly waters of Gastineau Channel. In winter, it also recaptures heat blowing up through vents from the chemical hoods. The conference room has a glass wall overlooking the ocean, and our tour guide told us he gets too distracted by breaching whales when he sits facing that way. What a life!

I want this poster for my wall!

After the tour, we headed straight to Mendenhall Glacier. Two of the four trails were closed: one for bears, the other for flooding.

Mendenhall Glacier melts into Mendenhall Lake.

I think these terns may have been flooded out of house and home.

We fought our way through the crowd of cruise-boat tourists for a look at the receding blue ice, admired the icebergs she had calved into Mendenhall Lake, and moved on to the stream.

Red squirrel munching on a mushroom.

Here, bright red sockeye salmon were spawning! The waters were so shallow over the river rocks that the salmon had to expose their dorsal halves in their frantic push to move upstream. Several white carcasses rotted on the banks. I realized that I had never seen a healthy stream of salmon before! I’ve learned about these fish since grade school, visited the fish ladder at the Locks, witnessed the life stages at the Seattle Aquarium, watched documentaries about the fate of Alaskan salmon if Pebble Mine is dug… but here in front of me were the real thing, unaware of their symbolism, just trying to reproduce like the rest of us. I wish you the best, big sockeyes!

A sockeye too large for its small stream.

As we watched salmon from the bridge, a National Forest ranger approached us. “Are you looking for birds?” she asked. Finally, a ranger-ornithologist! Together we spotted juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, a Pacific slope flycatcher, and a western wood-pewee. She gifted us a Birds of Southeast Alaska checklist and recommended a trail for dippers.

Pacific slope flycatcher.

Western wood-pewee.

We were in luck. As we walked back to the parking lot, we passed a secluded bridge over another stream. The tree branches dripped with lichens, and the soil embankment was caked with emerald moss. “If I were a dipper, I’d live here!” I told my mom. “Oh my gosh, there’s a dipper!”

Ideal dipper (and Nina) habitat.

There she was, popping in and out of the clear water, the droplets rolling off her graphite back. A bird that loves mossy streams! I am so fond of dippers.

Dipping for bugs.

Ahhh!

Now back to Marna’s for a mouth-watering salmon dinner. Our first home-cooked meal. And after that, a jaunt back up the tram (tickets are good for the whole day, so we wanted to get our full use!) for sunset on Mount Roberts.

Gastineau Channel at sunset.

Looooong shadow dancers.

I think this black leafy stuff is tree pelt lichen, Peltigera collina.

We were hoping to get to bed early, but at 10:30 pm I realized I couldn’t find my (dead) iPhone, so I spent half an hour tearing apart my suitcase, the car, and everything in the room. Finally Annabelle (that’s my iPhone) appeared in the folds of an emergency blanket in the trunk of Prius. Oh, what can you do when inanimate objects play pranks on you…

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 15 
• Start: Juneau, Alaska, United States 
• Miles traveled: 45 
• Hours driven: 1 
• Favorite bird sighting: American dipper 
• End: Juneau, Alaska, United States

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How Red Prius Nearly Got Bulldozed: Day Fourteen of the Alaska Road Trip

We woke up to rain and a clucking raven, apparently boasting that the hotel was named for him. We bypassed the first trailheads we came upon, partly because birds hide away in the rain, and partly because we didn’t want to get soaked ourselves.

A dark-eyed junco at our first stop.

The first hike in sunlight was Glacier Rock Trail. The first half was a wonky boardwalk through swamp and taiga (boreal forest). It was like a ramp, slanted in two directions, with occasional steps and a twisted railing. A funhouse in the forest!

Crookedy staircase.

Checkin' out the moss islands.

I’m glad we made it past the odd footing because the next part of the trail was a spectacular climb through glacial rubble. The ice has retreated so recently that only a smattering of crustose lichens have colonized these rocks. A flock of robins tweeted as they flew overhead.

Jane stands along the path of glacial rubble.

Our next stop was Million Dollar Falls Campground. Can’t skip a place with a name like that! The boardwalk here was much more sturdy – thankfully, since it projected over the waterfall at points. This waterfall was not your average river-turned-vertical. Somehow the rock substrate was angled such that the water took a diagonal 100-or-so-foot plunge, like a whitewater slide at a water park.

Million Dollar Falls.

The frothy water would have crushed any unsuspecting dippers (little black birds that dive for invertebrates in clear mountain streams) or humans. We imagined gory deaths of head injury followed by drowning… I guess this is why my mom and I have trouble enjoying any hikes that involve heights!

Weeee!

This deep green foliose lichen (Peltigera venosa?) grew on the earthen banks of the waterfall.

We passed into British Columbia and climbed the Chilkat Pass, where low-hanging fog obscured the rainy, rocky tundra. (You can find tundra when you go really north, really high, or both.) I was amazed to find this arctic biome in BC, the province that borders Washington State! Granted, BC is enormous. I was intrigued by patches of lemon-yellow groundcover. I’m still not sure if it was moss, lichen, or wildflowers.

These ducks were floating in a tundra pond near the pass. We think they were female scaups but... why is her neck so much longer than the others'? 

We arrived at possibly the most remote US border crossing there is.

“You’re taking the ferry?” asked the young customs officer. “Not the Columbia I hope!” He told us he’d just moved up with his family from Arizona, but his ferry, the Columbia, had broken down twice. They left Bellingham a day late, then limped into Ketchikan at 30 knots where they remained for a couple days. “But, you know, it was the government moving us and paying, so we didn’t mind!” he added cheerfully. We told him we had been scheduled on the Columbia, but now we’d been shuffled around and given an extra night in Juneau. He wished us luck.

We followed the Chilkat River as it widened from a braided glacial stream to a wide saltwater inlet. Heavy rains were apparent in the rushing muddy flow, standing waves, and flooded brush.

The milepost warned us we'd be able to see "water wheels" along the highway. These large chain-link contraptions spin with the river and collect salmon for subsistence harvest.

We arrived in rainy Haines just in time for lunch.

After a lunch of a pulled-pork sandwich at a Haines coffee shop, we birded the small boat harbor in full rain gear. It was fun to see the smaller, high-pitched northwestern crows on the same beach as larger, croaking common ravens. On the road by the ferry terminal, we ran into lots of unexpected songbirds out for a sing in the drizzle: an olive-sided flycatcher on the guardrail, a couple of bank swallows darting over a gravel pit, four harlequin ducks bobbing in a sheltered bay, and a flotilla of hundreds of surf scoters. Bald eagles and red-tailed hawks eyed us from towering Sitka spruce.

Glaucous-winged gull in the Haines Small Boat Harbor.

A mysterious dark raptor... perhaps a juvenile red-tailed hawk?

An American kestrel enjoying an afternoon by the sea.

Four Harlequin ducks.

An olive-sided flycatcher wearing its "vest."

A flotilla of surf scoters.

A juvenile common murre.

At one point we had parked the Prius in a gravel pull-out. Jane was across the road looking at the bank swallows through her binoculars, and I was trying in vain to get a photo, when a big yellow bulldozer barreled up the muddy side road straight toward us! I thought it was going to plow right through the Prius.

“MOM!” I yelled. She didn’t look, assuming it was another bird I’d seen. “MOM, MOVE THE CAR!” When she looked, she came running. The bulldozer stopped and a concerned young man hopped down.

“Y’all break down?” he asked. We shook our heads mutely. “You look terrified!” he laughed.

“We’re just looking at birds,” I managed.

“Oh! Okay then!” He waved as he continued to trundle down the mud road, away from our car. If Prius had emotions, she would have been quaking with relief.

Red Prius got muddy today. We're glad she didn't get crunched into scrap metal, too.

Finally, it was time to load the Alaska State Ferry. Cold and wet, we braved the deck for an hour before giving in and buying a whole game-hen and mashed-potato dinner in the cafeteria.

There's our boat, the Le Conte.

We asked to share a table with a couple from Dallas on a monster road trip. I was gazing out the window absently when I noticed some strange puffy waves in the distance. “The water is hitting those island rocks out there and jetting up like a geyser,” I mentioned.

“Sounds like a whale,” our table mate said without looking up from her book.

We looked closer and, dude, she was right! Around six humpback whales were spouting and fluking. Those “rocks” were their knobby dorsal fins.

Sailor Nina keeps lookout.

Skipper Jane shows off the solarium where campers sleep.

Low-hanging clouds shroud our view of the peaks erupting from the ocean.

We arrived at 9:30 pm to Auke Bay, drove 20 minutes into downtown Juneau (about as far as you can drive in this ice-field-and-ocean-locked town), and drank warm tea with our friend Marna before collapsing into her basement guest bed, exhausted, dry, and warm.

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 14 
• Start: Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, Canada 
• Miles traveled: 165 (Prius) + 62 (ferry) 
• Hours driven: 4 
• Favorite bird sighting: olive-sided flycatcher 
• End: Juneau, Alaska, United States

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