Downtown Juneau, hemmed in Want to borrow this image for your website or blog? Please read Terms & Conditions.

This is a photograph of Juneau I took in July 2000 from the top of the Mount Roberts Tramway. Juneau sits below on a flat ledge hemmed in by the Gastineau Channel and a wall of high coastal mountains. Here, less than a mile from zero elevation at sea level the elevation is already at about 1,500 feet. It gets higher quickly. And if that weren't enough, the ridge hosts an icefield that pushes glaciers down into the valleys. Attempting to put a road across here would be foolish if indeed it were possible. People "drive" from town using the ferryboats of the Alaska Marine Highway.

That's not to say there aren't roads in Juneau or that there's no room to expand. Notice the bridge crossing from Juneau to Douglas Island. Douglas is truly an island, so even though the bridge increases habitable space near downtown, it does not provide access to the larger world beyond. There is also plenty of room to grow along the coastline. Roads push north through the small gap that sits between mountain and water. Development takes place wherever the gap widens. The Mendenhall Valley opens onto a broad plain several miles from downtown and contains the international airport as well as large percentage of Juneau's population in subdivisions along the Mendenhall River.

End of the Road Want to borrow this image for your website or blog? Please read Terms & Conditions.

The Glacier Highway / Veterans Memorial Highway continues generally north from city for perhaps 50 miles. Even so it stops far short of Haines and Skagway with their access to the external road network. I took this photograph in 1995 where the road abruptly terminated at a guardrail, appropriately marked with a sign that read "END." I understand that since that time the road has been paved another 10 or more miles.

Even though Juneau is not technically an island it certainly feels like one and it has a lot of the same attributes.

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Resources for Planning your Visit

• Southeastern Alaska and the Inside Passage. My Travel Page with more about Juneau and other locations in southeastern Alaska
• Wikipedia's Juneau
• The City and Borough of Juneau Homepage
• Mount Roberts Tramway
• Travel Alaska