We arrived in Juneau on Sunday flying from Cleveland to Juneau. The goal of the trip is to work with the AYLS youth group of Kake Alaska (formerly known as TRAYLS) coring trees with both the Wooster group of faculty, staff and students and AYLS learning more about the forests of Southeast, Alaska. 
Lilly took a great picture of the dock on Auke Lake just down from our lodging at the University of Alaska Southeast campus. We spend two nights in Juneau getting staged for our trip south.
Our first full day was a break-in hike up the Thunder Ridge trail.
It was slow going at first – we took a few cores on the way sampling mountain hemlocks along the way to keep in shape.
Fred and Lilly led the way.
There was an endless up hill.
Tuesday was a travel day – we took a short hour flight from Juneau to Kake to meet up with the AYLS group in Kake (more to come).
Kake from the air – another day of brilliant sunshine on the water.
Irises grace the area around the lower Mendenhall River in Juneau.
Yay Team Alaska! Glad all is well up there. Looks like gorgeous weather — and I don’t see any mosquito nets. We look forward to future posts. Good luck with your mission!