Going to Juneau on the Alaska Marine Highway

First Motorhome Ferry Ride

Our next stop after Haines was Juneau, which is about a six hour ferry ride away. Due to the mountains east of most of the Alaska Panhandle there are no roads that allow you to drive into any of the towns along it, so getting to Juneau is either by boat or plane. The Alaska Marine Highway System has roots going back to 1948 and over the nearly 80 years since has grown to connect more than 30 communities on the Alaska coast. Interconnecting so many small communities is challenging, but we by and large enjoyed our experiences on the ferry. The trip from Haines to Juneau on the MV Columbia was delayed a couple of hours, meaning instead of getting into port at 10:30pm we’d get in at 1:00am, the difference between setting up camp in twilight vs dark. Unfortunate but not all that bad.

Other than the delay the ferry ride was great. The Alaska Marine Highway System is a designated National Scenic Highway for good reason, it passes through breathtaking snow-capped mountains. It’s a little daunting heading onto the ferry for the first time. We arrived a couple hours before the scheduled departure to queue up. Because there are multiple stops for the ferry the cars need to be arranged in such a way as to allow them to be driven off when they get to their destination. Since Juneau was the first of a number of stops we were among the last to go on board.The ferry crew was quite professional and friendly, which made things a lot easier getting on the boat. We had booked our motorhome and towed car as one combined unit but because space is at a premium on the boat we were asked to unhook the car from the motorhome to make things easier. Not a problem with two drivers, but it did make it a little more challenging getting off the ship in the dark since the two vehicles were not next to each other on the boat.

After getting the vehicles situated we enjoyed a salmon dinner in the Columbia’s dining room and were treated to a magnificent sunset over the mountains behind us. A few people reported seeing whales, but we weren’t lucky enough to catch a glimpse of any. We arrived at the Auke Bay ferry terminal in Juneau at about 1:00 in the morning. It was the first time we had seen actual darkness since getting on the Alaska highway over a month ago, which was unfortunate since we needed to find our campground and get set up on our site for the night. That’d be a lot easier with a little light.

Juneau, Alaska’s Capitol and Home of Mendenhall Glacier

Our first night in Juneau was at the Auk Village National Forest Service campground, just a couple of miles from the ferry terminal. The drive was short and we got set up fairly quickly on in spite of the site being a bit tight for our motorhome, with trees and rocks making things challenging. Next morning we took a quick walk around the Auke Recreation Area’s beach, which seemed like a good spot for a picnic before packing up and heading to the other National Forest Service campground in the area, Mendenhall Campground.

Mendenhall is a large National Forest Service campground located on Mendenhall Lake, not far from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, a major tourist attraction in Juneau. The campground has about 70 sites, mostly forested, with about a dozen full hookup sites. Drinking water is available and there’s also a dump station on site. We stayed in a site right on the lake, preferring the solitude and views to the convenience of the full hookup sites in the southern part of the campground. Our site was great, on the waterfront with views of the glacier across the lake. The site was surrounded by trees but we were able to get enough sun to keep the batteries charged for our six night stay without too much trouble.

Cruise Ships and Tourists

Juneau is one of the most popular ports for cruise ships in Alaska and it shows. While we were there there were at least 4 or 5 large ships docked and tens of thousands of tourists descending on Franklin Street downtown each day, shopping for t-shirts, jewelry and anything else someone thinks a cruise-ship passenger might want to buy. Some of it is Alaska-related, some not. Since most of these arrive overnight or in the morning and leave in the evening there are a lot of folks in town during the day, making a lot of the attractions and cruise ship terminal area extremely busy during the day. To avoid these crowds we looked to get to places like the glacier early in the day and to wait until after 7:00pm or so to go to dinner. As the ships’ evening departure times approach, people tend to return to them and it gets easy to find a table.

During the day we took a walk around downtown Juneau, going by the Governor’s Mansion, Overstreet Park and it’s whale sculpture and totems and walking the crowded Franklin Street in addition to visiting the salmon hatchery and learning about that industry. In the evenings we took advantage of the departing cruise tourists and dined in some of the restaurants along Franklin Street.

While we were in Juneau we also took a day to drive up Glacier Highway to the aptly-named Eagle Beach. Here we saw dozens of eagles that were drawn to the beach by the salmon swimming up the Eagle River to spawn. The river was literally filled with them, alternately moving upstream and then resting.

Next Up – Gustavus and Glacier Bay National Park

After Juneau we went back on the ferry to visit Glacier Bay National Park in Gustavus. Look for more on that part of our Alaska adventure on our blog page.