After our long trip to Juneau, we had a good rest and were ready to go in the morning. Our cruise did not start until the next day so we booked a small plane flight tour over 5 different glaciers (5 Glacier Seaplane Exploration by Alaska Shore Tours).

If you do this tour (highly recommended) be aware that they will likely tell you no bags and to dress warmly. If you do have a bag, they will stow it in the back for you. Any camera equipment - be sure to have it on your person tightly attached as you won’t be able to get to your bag until you return. As to dressing warmly, do layers. I imagine that some days it can be very cold but for this flight, it was quite pleasant in the plane - unzipping the layers made a big difference.

This being Juneau, Alaska, it is always a gamble whether the weather will be clear enough to take off. It seems that they can take off even with some rain but Alaska is known for much more than ‘some’ rain! Luckily for us, the clouds started breaking before our flight (recommend booking later in the day to improve your odds) and we were treated to some light rain as we rose above the cloud cover. From there we had spectacular views with some low clouds hanging along a few cliff sides with a mix of great lighting.

The plane flew down the narrow channel that Juneau sits in and then headed up the Taku Inlet. The glaciers we went over were all coming down from the western side of the inlet. They varied in size but were all just incredible. If you look at the map, you can see that the Taku Glacier is 55 km (34 miles) long descending from the Juneau Icefields. This glacier was until recently still growing but has now joined so many others in retreating. As it retreats, a new fiord will be formed.

The Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier is actually fed off the Taku Glacier.

Further up the inlet, again being fed by the Juneau Icefield, the East and West Twin Glaciers descend into the Twin Glacier Lake. The area around the lake is a much wider region filled with waterways, a variety of vegetation, and, of course, abundant Alaskan wildlife.

Being in a smaller plane, our pilot was able to take us down to fly just above the surface of one of the glaciers. As you can see in the pictures, these ice sheets are anything but smooth. Those crevasses are deep. Not something to try to hike across!

As we approached Juneau again we were treated to a narrow dark cloud bank along one side of the channel. As a final very nice touch, we were treated to beautiful rainbows. Our plane took a low swing over Takhu, the whale sculpture which greeted us on our return.