What is a Mendenhall Glacier helicopter tour in Juneau like? — featuring Hubbards Journey (NorthStar Trekking)
In this video: Juneau Alaska Helicopter Tour & Guided Walk on Mendenhall Glacier - From the Juneau Cruise Port
Hubbards Journey · 2 years ago
How many people fit in each helicopter?
Each helicopter holds five to six passengers depending on their combined weight. Seating assignments are determined at sign-up based on height and weight data provided when booking, ensuring balanced weight distribution across the aircraft.
Overview of This Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter Tour & Walk
This video follows a couple on a full-day helicopter tour and guided glacier walk in Juneau, Alaska, booked through their cruise ship. After departing from the Juneau cruise port, they're transported to NorthStar Trekking, where they receive custom-fitted gear, board a helicopter piloted by Davis, and fly over Mendenhall Glacier before landing directly on the ice. The tour includes a guided walkabout with crampons, poles, and professional guides who explain the glacier's geology, movement, and the surrounding landscape. This experience is ideal for cruisers with a port day in Juneau who want to see the glacier from above and actually step onto it—something the travellers had not done on previous visits to the area.
The video documents every phase: gear selection at the base camp, the scenic helicopter flight over canyons and peaks, the landing zone preparation, crampon fitting, and the approximately two-hour glacier walk with three guides (Cody, Sam, and Owen). Weather cooperated on the day of filming, offering clear views. The tour combines adventure and education, making it memorable for first-time glacier walkers and those seeking a more immersive experience than viewing from the visitor centre across the valley.
Key Moments
Highlights from the Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter Tour
Helicopter flight over Juneau, including glimpses of Nugget Falls and Mendenhall Lake, with the pilot dipping in and out of canyons for scenic views on the way to the glacier
Landing directly on Mendenhall Glacier and first steps onto the ice after crampons and safety briefing
Glacier walkabout featuring guide explanations of the glacier's movement, the moraine (where rocks deposited by glacial flow pile up), and granite formations including sagite structures created by melting rocks
Discovery of a flowing meltwater river on the glacier and opportunity to drink fresh glacial water
Close-up views of the medial moraine and granite boulders that have travelled 2 to 5 miles across the ice from the Juno ice field
Return helicopter flight to base camp with aerial perspective of the entire landscape
Practical Details Before Booking This Juneau Glacier Tour
Location and duration: Tours depart from the Juneau cruise port; transport to NorthStar Trekking takes about 15 minutes. Glacier time is approximately 2 hours of walking on the ice.
Booking through the cruise line: The video shows why this matters for cruisers with short port days—independent booking times were too close to the all-aboard deadline, making cruise-line booking worth the extra cost for peace of mind.
Gear provided: Height, weight, and shoe size are required at sign-up to pre-fit boots, rain jacket, rain pants, and crampons. Helmets and poles are also supplied. Backpacks and selfie sticks are not allowed; personal items go in a small fanny pack.
Weather considerations: Clear days offer much better views; rain and strong winds can affect both the flight and glacier experience. The video notes luck with weather—clouds were present but views remained excellent.
Physical demands: Walking requires higher, wider steps due to crampon design; guides point out potential tripping hazards like potholes. Terrain is mostly flat but rocky. Guides stay with the group throughout.
Bathroom planning: The glacier walkabout is approximately one hour away from the nearest bathroom, so hydration needs should be considered carefully.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter Tour
How many people fit in each helicopter?
Each helicopter holds five to six passengers depending on their combined weight. Seating assignments are determined at sign-up based on height and weight data provided when booking, ensuring balanced weight distribution across the aircraft.
Is the glacier walk difficult or dangerous?
The video shows flat terrain with guides Cody, Sam, and Owen providing continuous instruction and supervision. The main challenge is adjusting to crampon walking, which requires lifting feet higher and stepping wider to avoid tripping. Guides point out hazards like potholes and sagite formations. No technical climbing or rope work is involved for this particular tour.
What happens if the weather is bad?
The video doesn't specify what happens in poor conditions, but the guides mention that rain and strong winds can affect the experience. On the day filmed, conditions were clear despite some cloud cover. It's advisable to check with the tour operator about weather cancellation or rescheduling policies before booking.
Can I bring a camera or phone on the glacier?
The video shows personal items like phones and cameras must fit in a small fanny pack. Backpacks and selfie sticks are not allowed. Phones can be kept with you, but large recording equipment is not permitted for safety reasons.
What's the total time commitment for this tour?
The video shows transport from the cruise port takes about 15 minutes. Once at base camp, add time for gear fitting, safety briefing, helicopter flight (outbound flight is scenic with canyon views), the glacier landing and approximately 2-hour walkabout, and the return flight. Plan for a full morning or afternoon block; the video travellers booked it through the cruise line to ensure they returned well before the all-aboard time.
This video is invaluable for anyone considering a glacier helicopter tour from a Juneau cruise port. It walks you through every step—from gear fitting to what the actual glacier walk feels like—with honest commentary about cost, weather luck, and the decision to book via the cruise ship rather than independently. The guides are clearly knowledgeable and personable, and the video captures both the grandeur of flying over the glacier and the intimate experience of walking on the ice itself.
What impressed me most was seeing the practical details most tour videos skip: the crampon fitting process, the safety briefing, the explanation of moraine and glacial movement, and the guides poking holes in ice formations to show the layered sagite structures underneath. The travellers' genuine excitement and the pilot's willingness to dip into canyons for better views show a well-run operation. If you're a cruiser in Juneau and have ever wondered what it's actually like to set foot on a glacier, this is the video that will help you decide to book it.
Years on the front lines of helicopter tour coordination — not as a travel blogger, but as the person responsible for making every guest experience go right. Managed 2,000+ cruise guests weekly as Shore Excursions staff aboard the Pride of America in Hawaii
Personally coordinated with helicopter tour operators to confirm age, weight, and safety requirements.
Join us for a Juneau Alaska helicopter tour and guided walk on Mendenhall Glacier, one of the most unforgettable Alaska cruise excursions we have ever done.
In this video, we take you from the Juneau cruise port to NorthStar Trekking, show the gear they provided, the helicopter flightseeing over Mendenhall Glacier, the glacier landing, and what it was actually like walking on the ice with guides. We also share why we booked this excursion through the cruise ship instead of independently, especially since we had a short day in port and wanted the peace of mind of getting back before all-aboard time.
We were sailing on a 31-day transpacific repositioning cruise aboard Carnival Luminosa from Australia to Seattle, and Juneau, Alaska was one of our ports of call. We had been to Juneau before and visited the Mendenhall Visitor Center, walked near Mendenhall Lake, and explored Nugget Falls, but this time we wanted to experience Mendenhall Glacier from the air and actually step out onto the glacier itself.
We were lucky to have a clear day without heavy rain or strong winds, which made the helicopter flightseeing and glacier walkabout even more incredible. If you are planning an Alaska cruise and wondering what a Juneau helicopter glacier excursion is really like, we hope this helps you decide if it belongs on your bucket list.
We have provided timestamps below if you want to jump to specific sections of the video. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. And check out our Alaska playlist for more Alaska cruise adventures from the past and a few more still to come!
00:00 Intro to our Day
00:23 Finding our Excursion
01:07 Northstar Trekking & Helicopter Tours
01:23 Gearing Up
03:34 Safety Briefing
03:49 Boarding Helicopter
04:12 Meet our Pilot
04:40 Helicopter Briefing
05:58 Helicopter Flightseeing Juneau
07:17 Glimpse of Nugget Falls & Mendenhall Lake
07:40 Mendenhall Glacier
07:59 Glacier Moraine
09:05 Glacier Perspective
09:33 Glacier Dogsledding Camp
10:54 Mendenhall Lake & Helicopter Decent
11:07 Glacier up Close
11:50 Glacier Guides in Sight
13:00 First Steps on Glacier
13:17 Helicopters Leaving Glacier
13:35 CrampOn Gear
14:35 Guide Chat
16:12 Glacier Walkabout
17:29 About Glacier
19:24 Water Break
21:35 Moraine & Granite Rocks
22:42 Final Glacier Looks
23:27 Helicopter Arrives
24:07 Helicopter Flightseeing
25:50 Helicopter Landing at Basecamp
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Video transcript for “Juneau Alaska Helicopter Tour & Guided Walk on Mendenhall Glacier - From the Juneau Cruise Port” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
guess where we are we are in Juno Alaska what are we going to do today Howard we're going to go on a helicopter ride and we're going to go onto a glacier we're going to land that helicopter on a glacier yep and do a walk about on a glacier yeah very excited come along with us let's
go welcome to hubbert's Journey today in Juno Alaska we are going on a helicopter flightseeing and menden Hall Glacier Walkabout typically we like to book our excursions independently or direct with the provider but this time we booked through the cruise ship and the reason we decided to do this was because we had
a very short day in Juno and the independent booking times were a bit too close for our All Aboard time so we decided it was worth the extra few dollars to book with the cruise ship for that peace of mind that the cruise ship wouldn't leave us behind with our Excursion tickets in hand we walked off
the ship and looked for our appropriate Excursion tour sign once we found our group and we're all accounted for we headed to their van and found the driver that would be taking us to the Northstar trekking and helicopter building which was adjacent to the Juno airport and about a 15-minute drive a ton of people
in this van this is like a this is like a clown car once we arrived at the office we had the opportunity for a quick bathroom break before we were brought into a room where we found our names on a b bag along with all of our gear including a short amount of paperwork and a waiver
design as part of the preliminary paperwork at the time of sign up we needed to provide our height weight and shoe size this not only allowed them to have out the appropriate gear waiting for us but it also determined our seating assignments within the helicopters each helicopter would fit
five to six passengers depending on their weights this is for all of your personal items backpack stuff like that this is your rain Co your rain pants Y and your boots okay and all your personal items that go with you and there oh personal items go inside that thing right there right pants on before your boots pants
on before the boots to check that out what's your name Amy Amy thank you so much all right so we got to put the pants on first this is going to be awesome we're going to go in a helicopter you're going to have the best time ever so exciting you don't want to do is put your phone and stuff on your pants under
CU if you need now the the selfie stick I'm not allow to bring self no selfie stick no backpacks um and if you have personal belongings you're going to be putting them in a little like a fan pack kind you're going to be yeah whatever you want to take with you you'll put yep we've provided a
granola bar and a can of water yeah it felt like there was something in it so was a granola Barn M A can yes trying to get away from the plastic nice so they have different types of boots boot was too small the next boot you couldn't get in past here but this one here good fits just right all right
lace it up and let's get going I got mine on laced up yeah this is got my pants on Tony and Stella even have their jackets on woohoo you're ready to go right I'm going to finish up the staff was amazing and provided us with all the essential gear in the appropriate sizes that we needed after we were all dressed we got
a safety briefing our helicopter assignments and we were ready to go many years has been doing this Davis is the pilot concerned about that St last year he was one of our van drivers he got promoted oh right there so we're starting to Pile
in to the chopper are you the pilot yes sir and your My Name is Davis Davis Davis is the pilot you guys all right good morning everyone how's it going very good you guys have any questions after the safety briefing um how how long have you been doing this uh you know five days don't worry you got the
experience pilot um so yeah no questions everything like that all right very cool you guys look like you're all buckled in everyone's ready to go fly yep squeezed in like sardines oh my goodness if for any reason you guys do need to talk to me while we're in that phase just a light tap on the shoulder will work okay
and then once we're out of the air space I can go ahead I'll tune you guys in we'll start talking I'll give you guys some details about the area and then uh we'll get you guys up on the ice go exploring so on the way there are we going to see the same things as the way back or is it slightly different on the
way there we're going to see more on the way back we'll kind of just be coming back to the airport but uh on the way there we're going to have some fun we'll we'll dip in and out of some Canyons show you guys some cool stuff so nice thank you very much Tony you going in a chopper yes sir
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we're getting shoed up we're getting spikes added to our boots and then we'll uh we got some poles there we're going to end up walking on the glacier these are the previous guys that were up here they're boarding them on the helicopter now and they're going to take them back to the airport once we're done with our
walking on the glacier that'll be us getting back on heading back to base camp and kind of give me your foot lean on my shoulder if you need to and scoot back a little bit in the heel that works right there now we're just going to stra her on and then you will stop slipping how's the flight up for you oh
it was fantastic it was amazing when did you get up here uh about 2 hours ago 2 hours ago huh yeah yeah I get to spend the whole day up here so that's put amazing isn't it I like it a lot yeah yeah what are the perks of the job I got a really nice office yeah hey what' you do today well I just hung out on a
glacier that's kind of what I do then the worst part is getting to work though the helicopter ride the work commutes awful I know the views suck unbelievable huh those views oh yeah it's amazing how uh clear it is today with all the clouds like it's still great views that foot's all good
okay thank you oh yeah we definitely got lucky with weather huh oh yeah I thought it was supposed to be raining on us right now you took the boat all the way from Australia yes 31 days I don't know if I could last that long on a boat oh yeah you could all right if I can get you two
over here I want just get everyone's attention for a safety talk with all this pointy stuff and we'll start going uh we'll get the all meet each other a little more and see the bre but my name is Cody we got Sam right here Owen in the back we'll be your guides today uh happy to answer any questions you got
don't do that too much uh before we start walking though I want to talk about the stuff these crampons on your feet you know they add like an inch to the bottom of your foot so pick your feet up a little higher if you drag your feet they can trip you also walk a little bit wider than normal these
straps with the spikes can catch themselves and trip you that way so just higher wider step and it will keep you away from anything big and scary but it's kind of on all of you to look out for like poth holes and little tripping hazards uh we're on pretty flat terrain but there's
definitely enough of that stuff to trip in but you'll see it if you're going to go into it can you tell us where we are currently in the glacier we're in Alaska no this is the medal Glacier it's about 13 miles long we're only about a mile and a half from the end of it a mile and a half from the end yeah so someone
actually mentioned the visitor center that is the Vis Center we can just barely see that okay that's probably good three or four miles away all right so we're pretty close to the end of this GLA okay that's basically what I was looking for thank you got all right well let's start walking walk plenty more
time we're going for a little walk on the glacier's a group we're always exploring always finding so very beautiful here we
go so first impressions what do you think very good loving it yeah I mean there's so many things to pick from when you're uh coming to these places but this is expensive you know so a lot of people may look at it like ah it's expensive but it really is a once in a-lifetime Journey a real real great not day you're
going to be on top no no yeah you can definitely see this flowing that's that's moving right there
one right here is nice and solid I want to get us a little closer to the Marin rare out here they generally only get on the glacier to go across because it's shorter than you know walking all the way down the lake and going back up um but they generally don't live or recreate or do be activity on the all
these rocks in front of us what those are where they're coming from Sam's really strong he's been putting them there making a field yeah trying to get my mom some new countertops It's All Pure Granite so trying to bring some special home for um this is called a medialine and so I
think I think you guys flew back over the towers over there today or did you guys go up the the right side anyone know I came down this way okay so you saw the towers back in there with the snow on them probably in the clouds a little bit so those are Granite spires coming out of the Juno ice field back in
there it is close to a mile deep and when the ice river is Flowing it is going around those towers and then forming a like a zipper like motion that comes back and meets in the middle as it does this it is doing something called plucking and you see these huge Boulders here A bunch of crushed up little ones
and sand it is actually making those Towers steeper very slowly by picking off rocks on the side and depositing them all the way down here and eventually into the lake so those rocks may have traveled anywhere between 2 to 5 miles to get here and some of them are larger than school buses or how wide the
Glacier is here between these two mountains you might get close now that I told you things are farther than you think it's about a mile across right here the glacier is a mile and a half at its widest point farther up but right here it is about a mile between the two so it's not a short
walk how close can we get to the river I was actually going to bring us over there right now I wanted to cross here but this looks a little slushy we go to our right a little bit we can hop across the river get closer to the medial Marine this is why they give these to people they can release their inner
child and just kind of poke things that one look at how fire down that one went yeah it's pretty interesting when the rocks are melting down into the ice it leaves like these sagite formations under there similar to like have you seen the 3D printer stuff how they build that that's what it kind of looks like
under there got these support beam of ice with a crust on top and that's what you're actually punching through when your foot goes under a little bit like you can kind of see it right there oh yeah I see it right there right there right underneath there if yall want to fill up too if you
brought water bottles or whatnot you can try the water or just cup it in your hands yeah I drink this all day every day it's the fountain you turned 72 yesterday been drinking this yeah you just reverse the same action you can pull it towards you and then you have to make sure you push it in and it
clicks if it doesn't click it'll leak on you you want me to get it for you yeah I'll try some did you get any water you like did you fill it you want to you want to get your own yeah sure I'll get some of my own right go ahead I don't have to get a cold hair yeah we'll fill that up and drink it je
that's cold just remember you're about an hour away from a bathroom so if that's something you need to consider consider it it's like drinking a nice gold one what do you think H it's cold it's good it's cold it's fresh too nice tastes like ice
does that's where it came from know there's water
right around it very [Music] cool all right those are our rocks rocks from the glacier one little one all the way back from the hall Towers [Music]
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hey David Michael Andrea Stella and anonio [Music]
guys here we go Michael [Music] [Music]
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been on the chopper we've been walking the glacia we've been drinking ice ice cold glacier water that's so fresh but I have to go relieve myself it's been a journey that's not what you should be thinking about right now oh that's what I'm thinking about right now I got glacier water I'm full of it
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