There are certainly bigger and more spectacular glaciers in Alaska, but the twelve-mile-long, one-and-a-half-mile-wide Mendenhall Glacier , thirteen miles from downtown, is easily the most accessible. Should your knowledge of cirques and striations be a little rusty, the visitor center (built on a point occupied by the glacier as recently as 1940) has all you need to know (summer daily 8am-6pm; rest of year Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; tel 907/789-0097). Hiking trails include the West Glacier Trail, on which, with extreme caution and without official approval, you can explore the ice caves.

Capital Transit buses leave for Mendenhall hourly from downtown; get off at Glacier Spur Road for the visitor center, or Montana Creek Road for the West Glacier trail. Alaska Travel Adventures runs three-hour float trips on the Mendenhall River (tel 907/789-0052 or 1-800/791-2673; $97), while Temsco (tel 907/789-9501; $160) offers one-hour helicopter trips with 25 minutes on the glacier itself.

One of the best day-trips out of Juneau is up the narrow, twisting Tracy Arm Fjord , with waterfall-fringed cliffs and common sightings of whales and seals. Day-long cruises with Auk Nu Tours' stable twin-hulls (tel 907/586-8687 or 1-800/820-2628; $109) or with Adventure Bound Alaska (tel 907/463-2905 or 1-800/228-3875; $99) are both worthwhile.

Mendenhall Glacier and Tracy Arm Fjord

• Mendenhall Glacier and Tracy Arm Fjord

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