Alaska, Day Two

When I pulled out my Aran sweater from my suitcase and slipped it on (it was a very cool morning in Juneau), I found a tiny bit of paper in one of the pockets. I have no memory of where it came from.

How appropriate!

We wandered down the hill from our Airbnb to downtown Juneau passing the State Capital building and this sweet garden (note the native art on the bench).

After being fortified with coffee and a scone, we caught a local bus and crossed the Channel to Douglas Island.  Our goal was to hike in to the Treadwell Mines area, a relic of ruins of the mining era in Juneau.  It was about two and a half miles of mostly forest paths.

The forest reminded me of my childhood home in Oregon where my brother and I would scramble over the fences and play in the woods by our home. Fir trees. Ferns. Moss.

Treadwell Mines was a thriving enterprise and community during the late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century (1881-1922) and employed more than 2,000 workers.

Today all that is left are a few old buildings and rusted pieces of equipment and piles of cement.

And the pilings from the pier which I think are quite picturesque.

A catastrophic accident basically stopped the production. An area near the ocean inlet caved in. No workers were killed but many mules and horses died. And the tunnel ddisappeared.

This is the site of the cave in. It looks like a cove.

We were told there is a waterfall near by and hiked up the steep hill to look for it.  We succeeded in climbing up and finding where we could see it. Paris Creek Falls.  Unfortunately,  all the vegetation and a chain link blocked the view. Oh well. We could hear it and sorta see it. 

Then we climbed back down and took another trail back to the beginning.  Honestly, there was so much beauty everywhere that we hardly noticed all the gray and occasional rain drops.

Something I did not expect to see in Alaska was ALL THE FLOWERS.  Everywhere.  Some are wild flowers; some are plants in gardens.

After riding the bus back to downtown, we grabbed some dinner, climbed the very steep hill back to our Airbnb and called it a day.