Living Well With Diabetes

Today was my last full day in Juneau. I decided to take a look at Juneau from a perspective of 1800 feet above it.

There’s a hiking trail from downtown Juneau that goes through two miles of mountain rainforest and up about 1800 feet in those two miles.

After riding downtown and having a cup of coffee waiting for the rain to stop (it didn’t), I headed uphill on Sixth Street to the trailhead. From the intersection of Sixth Street and Nelson Street, I took a very steep flight of stairs up to the trailhead. From there, I entered the rainforest and I was on my way to the summit of Mt. Roberts.

This trail was marked as “More Difficult” and in “Good” condition in the trail information the person at the visitors center gave me. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who had hiked it today. It was wet. It was muddy. It was narrow. It was beautiful.

In about an hour and a half, I was 1800 feet above sea level and halfway to the summit of Mt. Roberts. Also halfway to the summit is a Nature Center and the top of a tram that leaves from downtown Juneau.

At the Nature Center, there’s a captive bald eagle. It had been shot by someone a couple years ago and rescued. Its injuries to its wing, eye (it’s blind in one eye), and beak prevent it from ever returning to the wild so a local rescue organization is caring for it.

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Yesterday, I intended to ride my bike to the north end of the Egan Highway (Highway 7). The weather was so miserable all day, I only made it to the Shrine of St. Therese, which is about half way to the end.

The Shrine of St. Therese is a small chapel built on a peninsula which is not much bigger than the shrine itself. St. Therese, I’m told, is the patron saint of Alaska.

I rained on my all the way there. It stopped briefly while I visited the shrine. I didn’t want to leave. It could have been because it truly is a beautiful, quiet and peaceful place to visit or it could have been just that it wasn’t raining on me at the time, I’m not sure.

Sitting around the shrine, I finally developed a good chill then it started raining again. That was enough to take the rest of my enthusiasm, so I headed back to Juneau, dreaming of a nice hot shower the entire way.

Of course, by the time I was approaching Juneau, I had warmed up, so I took a couple side roads to explore in an attempt to salvage the day. One side road took me through the Auke Village. There, standing all by itself, not drawing any attention at all, was a huge totem pole. It was so large — close to three feet in diameter at the base — I had trouble capturing the whole thing in one photo.

I also took a side trip down the Fritz Cove Road. As near as I can tell, this is where you live if you live in Juneau and you have a lot of money. Instead of returned the way I came on Fritz Cove Road, I took something called the Engineers Cutoff Road. It might as wll be called the Engineers Dropoff Road, at least from the other direction. After I turned the corner and was committed to taking it, the Engineers Cutoff Road began a short, but very, very steep climb. I measured it at 19% grade which is the steepest I’ve seen on my tour. Fortunately, I only had about 15 pounds of gear with me instead of my full 50 pound load.

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