Day 3 In Alaska - Zipping through the trees on a Zipline Tour

29 May 2007

May 29 - Day 3 in Alaska - Zipline at Eaglecrest Ski Area

Posted by Darrell under: Alaska; My Journal .

The weather today started out rainy and in the 40’s and stayed that way for the entire day.

We asked some locals for a good breakfast spot and ended up walking about 3 blocks to the Sand Piper. Once again, we started the day with some great food. This restaurant looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but is very nice inside with great food.

Then it was back to the hotel to meet the Zipline tour company people. There are 2 different zipline tour companies in Juneau. The one we booked with cancelled at the last minute (actually about 1 hour after they were originally supposed to pick us up). Caleb was not happy. Cruise West, the tour company that sold us the zip tickets, got on the phone with the other company (even though they don’t sell it) and got them to agree to hold their tour until we got there (about 10 miles outside Juneau at Eaglecrest Ski Area). Cruise West then called a taxi for us (and even paid for it) and Caleb and I were on our way to Eaglecrest to meet with Alaska Zipline Adventures for some zipping. On the way there, we saw a couple Sitka Blacktail deer. AWESOME. The zipine tour lasted about 2 1/2 hours and was INCREDIBLE. We zipped 5 lines plus crossed a really cool suspension bridge - all smack dab in the Tongass National Forest. I highly recommend Alaska Zipline Adventures and would do it again in a heartbeat. The guides (a couple female college students) were really nice and highly competent. It was $242 well spent. Take a look at our zipline pictures.

Before we left for the Zip tour, we ran into some hunters coming into our Hotel. I spoke with them briefly. They were cordial, but didn’t seem to want to talk. They were carrying heavy filming equipment so I assumed they were filming for some show. I was right, they filmed a black bear hunt and Chad (who turned out to be our guide) on a brown bear hunt. The film for two different shows Leupold Big Game Profiles. The funny thing is they were coming back from a hunt with my outfitter - Keegan McCarthy of Ocean Point. They said they harvested a nice bear with a muzzle loader and they missed a REALLY nice bear with a bow.

One of the guys helping them carry all their equipment (and there was a lot) introduced himself to me as Chad - Keegan’s assistant. He offered to take me out later to pick up any gear that we still need (I need Alaskan quality rain gear, hunting/fishing tags, and .44 Mag ammo). He called me at about 6pm and said he was still cleaning up stuff on the boat so we decided to take care of everything in the morning.

Caleb and I ended up eating in a Pizza dive called Hangar on the Wharf. The pizza was great. The service wasn’t. When we first walked in the guy in charge asked if I was ”this boy’s dad”. I told him I was. He then told me “he’s not allowed in here without his dad”. What a wipe. I’d already confirmed the obvious, I’m his dad. I then watched this same guy interrogate one of the other patrons about where he got the paper he was reading. Seems one of his newspapers had disspeared and he wasn’t buying that this guy brought his own paper in. Finally, a couple cute young ladies came in and were immediately asked for IDs, even though they weren’t drinking. These women (they were over 21 or they would have never been seated) were treated miserably for the rest of their meal. I guess I shoud have just found somewhere else to eat, but I was hungry - so I endured it.

We decided to just hang out in the hotel for remainder of the evening and get some sleep in preperation for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we hunt bear!

Related Posts & Pages

Recent Posts