Day One

We arrived in Juneau, Alaska's capital, at 2 a.m. Out the window on the left side of the plane, I saw a dark, starry sky. When I looked out the windows to the right, the sky was already beginning to turn blue. When we landed, the air felt like a September evening, crisp with a hint of moisture. After sleeping for a few hours at a hotel near the airport, we headed for downtown. We got off the bus to find a small town filled with knick-knack shops and restaurants. Cruise ships and fishing boats were anchored at the harbor. We met some of the locals, friendly people who told us about the history of the area. One man described the gold mining days at the mines in Douglas, just across the bay, and showed us his collection of photographs, and we watched another man carve a totem pole in front of a hotel. After an afternoon of shopping, we stopped to eat at a restaurant called The Hangar and then walked the three miles back to our campsite outside town. Exhausted by the weight of our backpacks, we slept soundly on our first night under Alaska's stars.

Day Two

After rising to greet the morning, the first thing I did was to throw out half of my MREs (Meals Ready to Eat, transportable food designed by the military). I regretted the decision to bring them because they brought the weight of my backpack to a whopping 63 pounds, which was really difficult to carry. After I dumped the MREs, we took down our campsite, caught a bus and then hiked to a hangar at the Juneau airport. It turned out to be the wrong hangar. Although I trained before our trip by hiking with a 40-pound pack, I was exhausted by the time we got to the hangar. I lay on top of my backpack and hoped God would have mercy on me or someone would come along and shoot me. There was no shuttle to take us to the other hangar, so we strapped on our gear and walked there in plenty of time to catch the single-engine plane that took us to Glacier Bay National Park. Just after takeoff, we looked down at Mendenhall Glacier. A local woman we met described it as "just a big chunk of ice," but I thought it was beautiful. The view of snow-capped mountains and blue-green waters made our 20-minute flight spectacular. Arriving at the Glacier Bay airport, we were met by a van that took us to the park's ranger station, where we registered for our campsite. The park is covered with dense rainforest and hugs the Pacific shore. Hiking in about a quarter mile to our site, we caught glimpses of whales and heard the splash of their tails hitting the water. After setting up camp, we walked to the lodge for dinner. The trail leading to the lodge ran between a forest thick with spruce and hemlock trees and a field of fireweed, a purple wildflower that stood up to 4 feet tall. Beyond the fireweed field was Glacier Bay's rocky coast.