Day 15 - 09/03/25 - Skagway, Alaska

 We woke up this morning with the ship docked.  It had arrived at 6ish, but we never felt a thing.  We at our customary breakfast, and dressed with our windbreakers and no backpacks to possibly do something special today.

The weather was totally calm with blue skies and it's what I had been waiting for.  We scanned off the ship with facial recognition and walked the long pier and approached the M&M ticket sales booth.  It was 9:15am and I inquired if there would be space in an upcoming excursion.  The agent made a radio call and said there were two spaces on the 9:30pm pickup.  So we booked it and walked a block up to the pickup point by snowplow train.

A little after 9:30am a van with Tesco on the side pulled up and greeted us and we boarded the van as the only passengers.  Our driver then drove us over to the start of the excursion while we watched a safety video.  There we were greeted and ushered in to put on special ice boots and a safety vest.  Outside we were assigned groups and we were put in the last  group.  There were 5 of us.  Once the pilot gave the ok signal we were escorted to our helicopter.  Yes, we're about to take our first helicopter ride and take that up to a glacier.  

Based upon our weights we were assigned specific places in the helicopter.  Angela got a front middle seat while I got the right rear seat.  We were buckled in and given headsets.  Alex from Utah was our pilot and he gave a short briefing, started the jet engine on the Airbus S-350.  As the engine  spooled up, the main rotor began to spin with a little vibration.  The noise level increased and the headsets dampened the noise but we could press a talk button to speak with the pilot and the other passengers. 

We were the first of 5 helicopters to take off and because we were the overflow copter, our pilot chose to fly us to a different glacier than the others.  Our destination was the Chilkat Glacier towards Mt. Fairweather.  The flying sensation was considerably different than airplane flying.  We just seemed to float in the air.  The sights of the mountains and many glaciers were spectacular.  The mountain crag tops were very pointy and beautiful.

At the glacier, Alex found a suitable landing spot and gently put the helicopter down.  Once the rotor stopped, we exited the copter and we were standing on glacier ice.  Alex led us around pointing out various glacial features and characteristics.  What was most surprising to me was how warm it was because of the nice sunny day warming the bare rock wall cliffs.  By the way this glacier is a valley glacier.  Streams of water flowed at the surface and in rushing torrents in deep crevasses .  We were able to sample some of the surface water. Another interesting feature was viewing gravel suspended in the ice.

All too soon our time on the glacier was over.  We reboarded the copter taking our original seats.  Alex restarted the helicopter and he gently took off and we headed for the face of the glacier where we skimmed just above the surface and were able to see detailed features of the surface.  Once at 6,000 feet of altitude we were able to marvel in the beauty of the mountains and glaciers as we made our way back to the helicopter base.

As we approached the base, the other 4 helicopter were approaching the base so Alex took us out over the bay in a large 360° turn before doing a sweeping turn into the landing. The landing was ever so soft. And it was over.  We went inside and removed our safety vest and overboots.  Hot drinks were available as well as transportation back to our ship.  But we declined and walked backed to our ship to leave some clothing behind (temps were I. The mid to high 70's) and pick up batteries.  The excursion was so worth it and I'll cherish it for the rest of my life.  

We scanned off the ship once again and walked back into town in search of a hat pattern at the yarn store.  The streets and sidewalks were crowded with passengers from 4 cruise ships (about 12,000 people).  We found the pattern and yarn and the proprietor wanted to split the yarn skein for us as one skein makes two hats.  While she was doing that we went across the street for a reindeer reuben sandwich.  They were really good!  Back at the store we picked up our purchases and headed to do the third item on our list.

That third item was to hike out to Smugglers Cove via Yakutania Point.  The hike starts out on pretty smooth trail but becomes quite gnarly with lots of roots and rocks.  Once we reached Smugglers Cove, I found an alternate route back which had a much easier trail.

Back in town we simply headed back to the ship.  It had been a full day!

We ate our customary dinner in the Lido and watched the unfortunate Caribbean Princess passenger wait in a very long line as they had to tender back to their ship as they were docked in front of of a landslide area.  The waiting time was at least an hour.  After dinner the evening entertainment was the Repertory Company performing 'British Invasion' about British Rock & Roll.  It was very good.  Afterwards I watched our departure from deck 3.  All aboard was 8:30pm but the gangway was stowed before 8:15pm. Passengers were early in returning to ship probably because Skagway rolls up the sidewalks around 6pm.  At 8:25pm the lines were released and the thrusters and azipods moved us slowly away from the dock.  Soon we were backing into the harbor and then turn clockwise to begin our sailing down the Lynn Canal.  Celebrity Solstice  led the followed by NCL Encore and us.  The Caribbean Princess was still docked when we left and exchanged toots with us as we left.

We watched a set at Billboard Onboard before attending the Orange party and sampling some Dutch treats. Then it was time for bed as our next stop is Juneau tomorrow.  We have a potentially busy day there and a fairly short day.