Haines Trip Report (bald eagle festival) and photos

[fti]

I used frequent flyer miles to fly from central MN to Juneau round trip. I then purchased an extra ticket from Juneau to Haines on Wings of Alaska ($195 round trip).

 

I spent Wednesday night November 7th in Juneau at the Travelodge. I picked it because it is walking distance from the airport, was relatively inexpensive, and has free wireless internet. They have a continental breakfast set up in the lobby – coffee, tea, juice, donuts and bagels. The next morning I was at the airport by 7am for the 7.45am departure to Haines. If you don’t want to walk, they have a shuttle bus.

 

Unfortunately the weather in November can be iffy in southeast Alaska and Thursday November 8th was no exception. There was heavy fog in Juneau pretty much all day that prevented even the full-size Alaska Air jets from landing. So certainly the smaller propeller planes would not fly. By 11.30am with the 7.45am flight canceled and the 10.30am flight at least 90 minutes late, I rebooked myself onto the 2pm flight and walked to the mexican restaurant attached to the Travelodge for lunch. After waiting for 8 hours, Wings of Alaska canceled the last of their three flights to Haines. I ended up making a reservation for Thursday at the Extended Stay Deluxe, even closer to the Juneau airport than the Travelodge (Travelodge ended up selling out that night due to so many stranded passengers). I headed into the city to walk around a bit and go to a couple of the shops.

 

Back to the airport at 7am on Friday and this time the flight took off. Arrived into Haines about 8.30am, the owner of one of the guesthouses gave me a ride into town since both her guest and I were renting cars from Captains Choice Motel. Now there are four car rental companies in Haines:

 

Eaglest Nest hotel (cheapest at $49/day including 100 miles/day)

Captains Choice hotel (cheapest at $69/day including unlimited miles)

Lynn View hotel (is near the ferry terminal and rents mainly SUV’s. not sure of the price)

Chilkat Tours (Avis franchise)

 

The car was relatively old and had 94,000 miles on it but ran perfectly. Checked in at the Bald Eagle Festival office, did a bit of shopping for lunch at the IGA supermarket then drove to the bald eagle preserve by about 10am. The preserve is from about mile marker 17-21. By mile marker 12 or so I started seeing eagles perched in trees. NOTE – eagles are few and far between in the summer months! Stopped a few times for photos then spent most of my time at about mile marker 19-20. Took about 400 photos on Friday. Went to the Klukwan native village for their 2pm tour. I was the only one who showed up so I got a personalized tour by one of the natives there. Very informative and lasted an hour. It cost $25, which will help build a new building they are saving for. My guess is that if you take a tour from the town of Haines in the summer it would cost more due to transportation from Haines and back and the profit that the tour company would also make.

 

It was getting dark already by about 3.30pm so I headed to Tanani Bay B&B about 4pm to check in. A really nice one-bedroom apartment with living room and full kitchen. $89/night for one person, $99/night for two people and includes breakfast. This is about 3 miles outside of town so without a car it is tough to get back and forth. It is very close to the Alaska ferry. The wife loves to bake and provided some nice baked goods both for breakfast and as snacks.

 

There was a program from 5pm to 7pm that evening at the bald eagle foundation, which I got to about 5.30pm. Live birds that are either for education or are being rehabilitated were presented and explained (eagles, ravens, hawks). Very informative for someone like me who doesn’t know much about such birds. At 7pm the festival photographer showed many of his photos from various places, mostly but not exclusively wildlife. He had great photos, but I had two problems with them – 1) many were so manipulated with the computer that they were more "computer generated images" than photos (for example, he explained that one photo was a composition of three different photos), and 2) he said that to get some eagle photos he set up a salmon and even a makeshift perch to attract eagles. This goes against the code of ethics that even the bald eagle foundation subscribes to. Needless to say I was not impressed.

 

Afterward I went to the Bamboo Kitchen restaurant for halibut fish and chips. I heard from more than one source about this famous dish at this famous Haines restaurant. They certainly lived up to their expectations. And the owners of this restaurant and attached bar almost single-handedly finance the bald eagle festival. Back to Tanani Bay.

 

Saturday I got an early start and was able to take some photos at sunrise of the town from a small inlet about ½ mile from the town. Pretty nice weather for Haines. Then headed back to the preserve. This time I spent most of my time about mile 20-21.

 

I was trying to get photos of flying eagles but that is tough. Late in the morning I saw several photographers with tripods set up down a hill near the river. There was an eagle feasting on his salmon. So I joined the photographer crowd and got some nice photos of this eagle chomping on the salmon. Actually several eagles took turns.

 

At 1pm I headed to the spot where there would be an eagle release "flight to freedom" – four eagles would be released that were in captive while recovering from injuries. It started to snow, quite heavily at times, but it didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. The entire process took about an hour since there was an "auction" to see who would either hand release an eagle or open the cage and let the eagle fly out. Over $2,000 was raised for the eagle foundation as a result!

 

Then after the eagle release, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I headed back to look for and photograph eagles. I was in for a treat. Right along the path that was perhaps 10 yards from the river I found another eagle feeding on a salmon and no one else was there. A second eagle was perched close by on a tree. So I got some nice photos of these two eagles.

 

Finally I went back to the B&B, had a quick bite to eat and was back at the bald eagle foundation by 7pm for the evening program. I stayed until about 9pm (entertainment in the form of a humorist and a family string band from Juneau.

 

I was so tired that I went right to bed and decided to pack in the morning. Up early Sunday morning to pack and check out. Tanani Bay didn’t charge me for the night I didn’t show up due to weather (that was unexpected but very nice). I returned the rental car by 9am, left my luggage at the hotel and took the walking tour suggested in one of the brochures I picked up. Took just over an hour at a leisurely pace. I would recommend this to anyone going to Haines by cruise ship in the summer. This was the walking tour in town. There is another one of Fort Seward.

 

I passed but didn’t go into either the Hammer Museum or the Sheldon Museum (both were closed Sunday morning). It sounds like both would be worth at least a little time inside.

 

The hotel that I rented my car from offered a free shuttle to the airport. I checked in and was able to sit in the co-pilot seat when the pilot realized I wanted to take photos. He even took a slight detour around a lighthouse so I could get a nice photo of it. We also passed Davidson Glacier, a nice photo op.

 

Back in Juneau, I connected to various flights to Seattle and Minneapolis and arrived home by noon on Monday.

Recap:

Glad that I reconfirmed my car rental a week in advance since Eagles Nest lost my reservation. They made good on it in the end.

 

If I had a choice I would take the ferry and not fly from Juneau. More reliable and cheaper ($37 compared with $95 for flying). But I made my flight reservations 10 months in advance when the ferry schedule was not yet available. If I go next year, it would be Thanksgiving week and not for the festival itself. I would plan enough time there to allow for taking the ferry if possible and spend an extra night or two in Juneau.

 

I had planned on driving up the Haines Highway to the Chilkat Pass but since I arrived a day late, that part of the trip was put on the "for next time" list. With the snow that Haines had when I was there, a drive up the pass might not have been a good idea anyway. Murray (Yukon) and others in Haines I talked to say it is an absolutely gorgeous drive. If you come in the summer and have a full day in Haines, consider driving up this mountain pass. It is supposed to be even more stunning than the Klondike Highway from Skagway.

 

If your cruise ship takes you to Haines, enjoy it. I liked it better than Skagway. Though I didn’t do it this time, I read that there is a "Hiking in Haines" brochure available at the tourist information office in town for those interested in hiking.

 

If you plan to drive up the Chilkat Pass, rent from Captains Choice Motel since they give you unlimited mileage and you will drive more than 100 miles round trip if you take that drive.

 

For those interested, you can see a selection of my photos using the following link. I ended up with about 300 photos so I only posted a selection on this site.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnn.photos/Haines

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

 

John

 

PS Murray, I looked for a Subaru Outback with "Explore North" on it several times but didn't see you. I hope it was because you weren't there, not because I just missed you!

[skibozo]

Great report! I think I would like to try this someday. How many people showed up for the festival?

 

Pictures were excellent. Although I didn't know eagles have a fondness for Coca-Cola! :)

[sharp_cruiser]

Thanks for posting a nice report and great pics as usual.

It might take extra time before a trip, but you are right, reconfirming reservations may save you some grief on the trip!

Of course, it seems there is always a "next time" in any Alaskan vacation!

[qiangf2]

John, welcome back! A great report and very nice collection of pictures. Just like the other poster, I am wondering if any of those Bald eagles ever tried Pepsi before. ;)

[fti]

The Coke logo is the only one that the program I use for a watermark has. And personally I like Pepsi better than Coke myself. Sorry! I think I can learn to make my own if I spent more time learning the program. I am too protective of my photos to just post them on a public site for anyone to download. But people often ask for photos so I try to find a good compromise.

 

Good question about how many came to the festival. There were probably several hundred in the eagle preserve when I was there. At the evening presentations perhaps 100 were there. Several lodging options were filled up on the weekend - I saw a few "no vacancy" signs.

 

John

[tee_harbor]

Thanks for posting a report, John. I had hoped you would.

 

Unfortunately the weather in November can be iffy in southeast Alaska and Thursday November 8th was no exception.

 

Let me qualify that even more. I'd say the 'fog season' starts around the end of September, although I had a friend have a delayed take-off in late August. I try to avoid early morning flights because there can be morning fog that burns off, as well as the issue that a plane often needs to *land* so you have a plane to take off in!

 

As I posted in another thread, I'd always put in a time cushion for connections because of this problem. As you enjoy the view of Mendenhall Glacier from the airport, you see the problem. The airport is built on the wetlands, and like when you defrost an old refrigerator, ice and warm water causes fog. Certainly it's worse during the fall and winter, but the conditions can occur at anytime, say a temperature drop right after a week of rain.

 

The airport was build quickly during WWII for its easy building location. There's been talk of moving it to the outside of Douglas Island, but as anyone watching the news may have noticed, the days of easy funds flowing towards Alaska may be coming to an end. :rolleyes:

 

Captains Choice hotel (cheapest at $69/day including unlimited miles)

 

I've stayed at this motel, and although dated, it's clean, not too expensive, and has some great water views from certain rooms.

 

The car was relatively old and had 94,000 miles on it but ran perfectly.

 

After the mix-up, I have to wonder if you were given somebody's personal car! :D The Eagle's Nest Motel was sold at some point this summer, which may explain the mix-up.

 

Glad to hear you went to the Klukwan tour and enjoyed it. I did it during the summer and price was higher...I want to say $65? But I considered it worth it. I'm always surprised that people will pay thousands to travel halfway around the world to see indigenous cultures, when there's some right here in the good ol' USA.

 

NOTE – eagles are few and far between in the summer months!

 

The eagles gather from all over SE AK during the winter because the salmon still run in the unfrozen Chilkat River. So it's not necessary to come for the festival, but it sounds well worth the effort. They're back chewing on garbage in the Juneau dump during the summer!

[Barek]

Thanks for the report! Back in 2003, I had driven from Anchorage to Haines in late September - the eagles were just starting to arrive, more in one place than I had ever seen before, and yet that was nothing compared to what it's supposed to be like in November - and your pictures confirm it. I've been wanting to go back sometime to see them - after reading your review, it just makes me want to go back even more. Hopefully one of these days.

[NancyIL]

Thanks for your great review and photos, John! I'm really looking forward to our port stop in Haines next July.

[Yukon]

Great report and photos, John - it sounds like it turned out just about perfect.

 

Cathy and I didn't make it down - we're moving in less than 3 weeks and things are pretty crazy.

 

Murray

[photodoodle]

Thank you for a very imformative report and stunning photos. This is going to be copied into my file for future AK travel planning.

What lens length were you using?

[fti]

Thank you for a very imformative report and stunning photos. This is going to be copied into my file for future AK travel planning.

 

What lens length were you using?

 

Thanks from someone who greatly admires your photos.

 

Generally I used a 70-200mm/f2.8 lens at 200mm. Occasionally I switched to a 35-70mm/f2.8 or very seldom did I add a 2x converter to the 70-200mm. I don't like the sharpness and hard-to-focus nature of using the longer lens and the 2x - probably should have only bought a 1.4x but hindsight is always better. I brought a tripod but I didn't use it as much as I thought (or as much as I should have!). One thing I learned on this trip is that I need to learn to shoot more on aperture priority mode and get a greater depth of field.

 

For some of the eagle shots I was 10 yards away or less from the bird. The path was sometimes that close to the shoreline and the eagles were right at the shoreline eating away. Even the photos of just the head and/or body of many of the eagles were taken at this spot - you just don't see the fish or the shoreline.

 

John