Local collaborators cruise through first day of visitor season

About 4,000 passengers of the Norwegian Bliss, Juneau’s first cruise ship of 2025, were welcomed by “business as usual” on the docks downtown Monday.

One of the first things they encountered after disembarking their ship was eight booths where they could secure tours to the Mendenhall Glacier.

“We want them to have a good experience,” Raffi Villa, an employee of Juneau Tours, said.

Villa and others selling tours said the process was the exact same as every year. To support this claim, strong winds threatened to blow away tourists’ tickets as they pushed through the rain to the tour buses. Then, they headed to Mendenhall Glacier.

The routine at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center was also standard, except for shortened hours, according to U.S. Forest Service Juneau District Ranger Michael Downs. The rain cleared just before the crowd cleared the building at 5 p.m.

When the doors closed, Karen and Linus Nielsen from New Jersey made their way down to the parking lot.

“One day they should line up with the tour buses, because we’ve now got an hour,” K. Nielsen said. “We can do some walking around, but if it was still really raining, people are stuck here for an hour and that’s closed.”

“We understand too,” L. Nielsen added. “There’s a lot of pressure on the parks department and everybody else to find people to work.”

Downs said it’s common for visitors to have to wait outside for their bus back to the dock even when the visitor center is operating at full hours.

“I think the staff did a really good job,” he said. “It’s a bummer for some guests that still have a while on their tour, right? But we can only stay open ‘till five, and it wound up being a beautiful day for them, so they could keep the trails. There’s still plenty of things for folks to do and see. It just won’t be inside the visitor center.”

Portable bathrooms are still open 24 hours a day and the bathroom facilities next to the parking lot are open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. The Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area’s hours remain 6 a.m. to midnight daily.

At a Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday, Downs said the Forest Service would utilize staff from Admiralty Island to ensure a minimum of five rangers at the visitor center daily. There are three currently employed at the Mendenhall Glacier after a mass firing of federal employees by President Donald Trump.

On Monday, there were 10, including Forest Service interns from the Student Conservation Association. Several cultural ambassadors from the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, plus employees from the nature and science education nonprofit Discovery Southeast, helped make a difference. On their way out, Downs thanked them. He said their enduring flexibility ensured the first day went smoothly.

“Very calm — a nice, slow start to the season,” Jordynn Fulmer, a cultural ambassador for Tlingit and Haida, said. “It was a nice, easy, not-too-challenging day.”

She said the first day was similar to last season, except for one task added to the cultural ambassador program. Fulmer said ambassadors are helping with headcounts for the Forest Service.

“I got over 500 visitors in under an hour,” she said, estimating the visitor center had more than 1,000 visitors on the first day. She looked forward to the rest of the summer.

“You’re going to see a lot more stories being told out here, a lot more of our language being added all over,” Fulmer said. “You’re going to see a lot more of our Indigenous work out here. We want people who are coming to our land to understand that this doesn’t just belong to us. It belongs to our ancestors who have been here since time immemorial.”

Downs said that tour operators are also collaborating with the Forest Service.

“Operators actually offered to help a lot more, and we’re going to take them up on it at some point,” he said. “We haven’t figured out what it looks like yet, but they are also very interested in keeping this open, doing what they can to help. They want to see us be successful.”

He said that so far, operators have agreed to close the glacier’s bus lot gate at 7:30 p.m. Last summer, bus drivers began directing visitors back aboard to help with crowd control at loading zones.

The visitor center is scheduled to be open intermittently during April while ships trickle in. The next ship will be the Carnival Spirit on Friday at 7 a.m.

On May 4, the glacier’s visitor center will be open Sunday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on Saturdays. Last year, according to the Forest Service’s website, the visitor center was open from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. every day from May through September. Downs said there is hope that the visitor center could open on Saturdays later this season.

“We have a plan for the things that are happening now,” he said. “Really good first day. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. We’re positive where we think we’re going to be able to pull it off.”

Those trying to enter the building after 5 p.m. were advised to explore by Juneau Deputy District Ranger Laura Buchheit. She suggested walking the Nugget Falls and Steep Creek trails.

“Some time is better than no time,” she said. “It was five to one — for every person sad we’re closing; many are happy we’re here.”

Gazing at the glacier shrouded by clouds, she said the Forest Service’s mission of caring for the land and serving people remains true.

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.