the Spiny Bear

Day 4 (I think) was at Juneau.  Without trying we turned out to be the first ones off the boat that morning, which was useful to hop in the only waiting cab and head out to the Mendenhall Glacier.  We hiked a few trails to look at the glacier and a big waterfall, looped back to the visitor center, and found a Porcupine right next to the trail.  I'd seen one when I was a kid, but this one was either full grown, or a different species since it looked enormous.

Its teeth were stained orange.  I was tempted to show the picture to a ranger to show off my bear picture to see how incredulous of a look I could get.

There were a lot of flowers covered in dew and and mist.  I think this is a lesser fireweed.

This one is a pyrola of some sort.

 There were lupines, fireweed, yellow paintbrush, and a lot of others, but I had trouble getting images that really popped.

We just missed a black bear that had disappeared off the trail and had 2 other hikers' knees shaking as they held hands and stood atop a stump.  There wasn't a ton of bird activity, the birds were done breeding and I didn't hear any song.  I glimpsed a Varied Thrush deep in the underbrush, and saw a few RC Kinglets.  A Townsend's Warbler was more cooperative than any I'd seen before (though I can count them probably on one hand so that might not be saying much).