Ice, Water and Beer

Today I had to check out of my hotel in Juneau by noon, and leaving my hotel means bringing all of my stuff with me and forfeiting their shuttle to the airport. Since my flight didn't leave until after 6 PM, this left an awful long time without that hotel safety net. I still had things to check off on my list of things to do in Juneau, though, so I checked out around 10 AM and trusted to the good fortune and providence that had sustained me so far on this trip to carry me through to its end.

First on my list of things to see was the Alaskan Brewing Company, which is located in the Lemon Creek neighborhood, a small valley halfway between the residential Mendenhall Valley area where my hotel was and the downtown Juneau area. This was well beyond walking distance and it was another overcast, rainy day in the Mendenhall Valley. I decided to try using the Juneau city bus system. I obtained a map from the hotel lobby and attempted to figure out. Ostensibly, the system is very simple--it runs in a loop around the Mendenhall Valley area and then into downtown Juneau. And that's it. Fares were $1.50 no matter where you were going. Very simple. I found the nearest bus stop and got on.

I've never been a big fan of bus systems. Sometimes, in Norman, when I'm looking to go around and see things without having to drive, I'll take one of the city busses around. I used to use that as my main transportation before I had a car. I met a lot of interesting people on those busses, people who would just start talking about their entire life to you without asking. As such, I feel like I have to be in a particular mood to ride the bus. I wasn't really in that mood this morning, so I wasn't looking forward to it. The bus I got on was very, very efficiently run and there was such a high turnover of people, no one had time to talk about anything. Of course, I didn't know where exactly I needed to stop, and the map wasn't clear. I took a chance and got off at a stop where many other people got off just past Lemon Creek. My fortune held and the next cross street I came to was the right one to turn down to get to the brewery. It was only two blocks away.
The Alaskan Brewery is the largest regional brewer in Alaska, and its beers are more popular than any other mainstream on-tap beer in the state. All of their beer is brewed at their Juneau brewing facility here, back in the hills of the Tongass rainforest. It was lightly raining out when I go there, which kind of added to the liquid atmosphere. I have never toured a brewery or winery or anything like that before, though (at least up here) I have been to many brewhouse pubs and restaurants. I've started collecting glasses with he brewing company logos on them, maybe to outfit a wet bar in my future home one day or something like that. I just like that kind of item to collect. Anyway, I decided to take advantage of my 21 years of age and go on the tour of this place.
Their "tour" didn't exactly go through the brewing part, but they did have a gift shop and "gallery" room where we got a 20 minute presentation by one of the brewers about the history of the brewery and why their beers are so special. Small digression here. Way back in January when I first flew to Anchorage for my site visit, I had just turned 21. I flew Alaska Airlines on my way up and our flight was delayed due to some refueling issue. To make up for that delay, the flight crew announced that, for their beverage service, they would not charge for any alcoholic beverages that people ordered. One thing that Alaska Airlines "proudly" offers is small bottles of Alaskan Amber beer, which is the flagship beer of the Alaskan Brewing Company. On my flight up, I was sitting next to a native Yupik Eskimo who was a doctor of some kind, and he ordered an Alaskan Amber. At the time, having just turned 21 the week before, I was still leery about ordering alcoholic things so I opted for a tomato juice. However, this man insisted to me that while I was in Alaska, I had to try an Alaskan Amber at some point, because it was such a local staple and, according to him, amazingly good. Every time I went out to eat in Anchorage on that trip there were always people around me orderin Alaskan Ambers or Alaskan IPAs or Alaskan Oatmeal Stouts...I began to realize how big of a deal this was. So when I returned for this summer, one of my earliest goals (now having had more experience with the different varieties of beers) was to try this Alaskan Amber and soon after I got here I bought six bottles from the store. And the beer was fantastic--it's by far my new favorite. It still retains the hoppy flavor that comes out so strongly in the craft beers, but at the same time I find it very drinkable, with or without food. I really, really do enjoy it. So, this added to my excitement at visiting the Alaskan Brewing Company.
Now that the stage is better set, I enjoyed their little presentation and asked several questions about their fermentation processes and whatnot. Having tried to ferment wine myself in a closet at college, I was aware of some of these challenges, even if wine is an entirely different concept. Of course, the highlight of this kind of brewery visit is the free beer. They have a little bar in their gift shop area with every variety of beer that the brewery produces, and they hand you a small sampling glass when you come in, encouraging you to return to the bar many times to sample their wares. I tried the Alaskan Summer Ale (which tasted like a lighter version of the Alaskan Amber to me...), the White (which is a wheat ale--definitely had a more fruity flavor) and the India Pale Ale IPA (which was an odd combination of bitter and slightly fruity?). I'm not a big one for stouts or darker beers, and after having one of their roasted malt beers described to me as, "It's like drinking liquid campfire smoke..." I was glad to stick to my lighter beers. The amber is still my favorite, though.
In their gallery where they gave their presentation, they had bottles from craft breweries in "every state," and I was eager to explore this (as recently finding these craft brewers has started to become a hobby of mine). There were several from Illinois, a ton from Wisconsin, and none from Oklahoma. (I do know that COOP Ale Works opened in March in Oklahoma City as I believe the first craft brewery in the state of Oklahoma...I'm looking forward to sampling their stuff...). At the gift shop, since this was a big deal for me, I bought two large pint glasses with the Alaskan logo on them, two smaller sample glasses and a set of coasters. I think it would be fun one day to have a little wet bar in the corner of the basement of my house and stock it with a few bottles of all these different kinds of local craft brews from around the country. It would be even more fun if I could serve these brews in the actual glasses I bought when visiting the brewery... But that's just a whimsical plan for the future. Anyhow, if anyone out there has any suggestions for any good craft breweries, by all means let me know--I'm finding exploring them to be fun. And Alaska is as good of a place to start as any. Alaskan beers are only distributed in Alaska and in basically every state from the Rocky Mountains west, so locally you won't be able to find them. This is kind of sad, but at the same time adds to the uniqueness.

Anyhow, after that tour (and with more beer than I planned on drinking at 1 PM), I took the bus back into the Mendenhall Valley loop to find the Juneau Weather Forecast Office where I was supposed to meet with someone to discuss their radar usage for my project. The Forecast Office is located on the same property as the National Forestry Service's headquarters for the Tongass National Forest. As such, the Forest Service dictated how the Weather Forecast Office's external appearance had to be. For this reason, the Juneau office is one of the most pleasant-looking forecast offices I have ever seen.
Most Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) are white brick or white siding with blue, Culvers-like roofs (to echo the blue and white logo of their parent organization, NOAA, furher representing the sea and the sky), but this one is all wood siding with a green roof (to echo the trunks and leaves of trees, like one would expect from the Forest Service). I will say that I found it somewhat odd that the Forest Service, dedicated to preserving and maintaining our National Forests, would want buildings that were covered with wooden siding. But...who am I to judge. There are several trails that lead from the Forest Service's headquarters out into the National Forest, and apparently this is a major hiking trailhead for local hikers. However, none depart from the Forecast Office, as this sign that I though was AMAZING and unique out front indicated...
What other WFO is concerned with trailheads? There were a few people working that day, and I was quickly welcomed into their little fold. It has been amazing how accomodating all the people in these WFOs I've been visiting have been. They are all very interested in what I'm doing and quick to engage me in conversations about everything. I don't feel like I'm impinging on their time or that they feel like they have far better things to do than talk to me. On the contrary, they seem eager to have someone else to talk to. Maybe that's saying something about professional meteorologists... Anyhow, I also met their two summer interns, one who is a graduate student at Oklahoma named Richard who I had met while I was still in Oklahoma, and another who is one of my Anchorage roommate's best friends from college and is also a Hollings Scholar like me who will be doing her internship next semester. Once again, this feeling of belonging and community was really there. After an hour-long discussion about the local weather and how they use their radar, Richard and Andrea (the other intern) offered to drive me out to the Mendenhall Glacier in the WFO's government car and then on to the airport, all without my having asked. I had planned on taking the bus to the airport and hadn't even planned on seeing that glacier--luck and providence come through again!

We drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is a major tourist attraction in the Juneau area. The glacier comes almost to the city limits and is one of the most accessable in the state. It's only about a mile and a half from the WFO and apparently the forecasters often go there on their lunch breaks. It also is amazingly crowded whenever the cruise ships were in and, remembering that I had seen three in the harbour yesterday, this proved to be true. But, anyhow, you park at the parking are and there's a large viewing platform to see...the glacier.
You're a lot closer to the glacier and it's a whole lot bigger than this photo makes it seem. There's a visitor's center on a small hill behind where I took this photo, and they have an elevated viewing deck there (with a roof over it...very important in this rainforest...), but it cost three dollars to go into the visitor's center, so we didn't enter. Richard and Andrea had been here many times before, so they knew a lot of the trails to get closer to the glacier and the lake. We headed down a few and I was able to get some good photos.
The glacier periodically calves off several very large and very blue icebergs into the lake below. The lake water was not as freezing cold as I thought it would be--maybe all the rainwater mixing in near the surface helped keep it warmer. But, however cold it was, it was cold enough to support these icebergs. They came in all shapes and sizes and were this very pleasant and rich shade of blue--more so than you can tell from the photograph. I'm told that this blue hue comes from the rock sediments that are compressed into the ice as the glacier grinds its way down the mountain. These particles help scatter the reflected blue light better, so it gives a very bluish hue. If you ever look at a river or stream that forms at the end of a glacier, often the waer will also have a blue, milky color. In free-flowing water, those rock sediments are called "glacial flour" and, because of their presence, it's apparently not advisable to drink water freshly melted off a glacier. You'll end up with a mouthfull of rock and sand. Remember this the next time you see an adverisement for "Pure Glacial Water...". It had to be filtered first.
There was a very powerful-feeling waterfall next to the glacier that just seemed to pop out of the rainforest up the hill. Lots of people from cruise ships ventured out and got very, very close to this waterfall. It was very refreshing to be near it, though, as it gave off a spray that was, for some reason, far more pleasant than the light rain that continued to fall. From the base of the waterfall, we were as close as we could get to the glacier.
Because I had my flight to catch, we couldn't stay long, otherwise I would have explored more and taken more photos. Since I was with a few friends now, I finally did manage to have a photo of me taken while I was in Juneau...
Richard drove me to the airport and arrived two hours before my flight was scheduled to leave. Right on time if you're planning to fly out of O'Hare. Way, way, way too early if you're planning to fly out of Juneau. I was sitting in their gate area, which is probably the size of a banquet hall and has only 5 gates (all Alaska Airlines), and was the only person in the gate area for at least 45 minutes. There weren't even any airlines people working any desks or anything...I was literally the only person there. Then, another family of three arrived and a business traveller, so now there were five of us. And the five of us were the only people waiting for our flight until ten minutes until boarding time when 20 people suddenly showed up all at once. I guess you don't have to worry about waiting in lines to check in or get through security in Juneau (I certainly didn't). Our flight was immediately cleared for departure and we arrived back in Anchorage early. I wish all flying was like that. Though I suppose growing up flying out of O'Hare I've only seen the worst of air travel and assumed all air travel was like that--it can only get better, right?

Anyhow, I enjoyed this Juneau trip immensely and definitely recommend Juneau as a vacation stop for anyone who wants to go there. It was kind of odd landing in Anchorage and feeling like I had arrived back "home"...in Anchorage. But, I'm happy to be back as well.