The first thing you notice at Glacier Gardens is how green everything is: moss on every trunk, ferns at the edge of the path, and trees standing on their heads with flowers spilling out of their roots. It sits in the Tongass National Forest in Juneau, and the visit combines a golf-cart tour through the rain forest with time to explore the lower botanical garden on foot. It suits anyone in Juneau who wants to see the forest up close and the valley from above.
Is visiting Glacier Gardens worth it?
Yes, especially for travelers who like gardens, photography or simply a slow look at a rain forest, and for anyone who wants a view over Mendenhall Valley without a long climb.
What sets it apart from the other things people do around Juneau is that it is cultivated. Mendenhall Glacier, the whale-watching boats and the wildlife tours are about wild nature seen from a distance.
Here the forest has been shaped by gardeners, so you get blooms in a temperate rain forest, a story behind the upside-down trees, and a lookout over the valley, all in one outing. It pairs well with a glacier or a boat day because it gives you the forest floor and the flowers instead of ice and water.
The Flower Towers are the image people carry home, and they are unusual enough to justify the stop on their own. Add the ride through Tongass forest and the panorama at the top, and the visit feels full.
What to see at Glacier Gardens
The Flower Towers
The Flower Towers are upside-down trees, set with their root masses in the air and planted so that blooms cascade down from them like living sculptures. The result looks improbable at first, a tree that seems to have been flipped by a giant hand, then oddly natural once the color spills over the roots.
Look at the contrast between the dark, twisted root wood and the bright petals, and at how the towers sit against a backdrop of spruce and hemlock. Mist or light rain tends to deepen the greens, so a gray day is not a poor day here. Bring a camera and take your time walking around each tower, because the shapes change from every side.
The Rainforest Adventure Tour
The Rainforest Adventure Tour carries guests in 18-passenger golf carts along a two-mile path through the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is the great rain forest of Southeast Alaska, and the carts move slowly enough that you can look at the mossy trunks, the thick understory of ferns and the wet, shaded light under the canopy.
It is a good way to look at the layers, the tall conifers above, the shrubs below, and the green carpet on every fallen log. Listen to the commentary and keep an eye on the edges of the path, since a forest like this rewards slow looking.
The summit view over Mendenhall Valley
At the top of the tour, visitors get panoramic views of Mendenhall Valley and the Chilkat Mountains. After the close, damp world of the forest, the opening of the view feels like stepping out of a room. The valley spreads out below, with the mountains forming the horizon.
Clear weather gives the widest sweep, but a partial cloud cover can make the ridgelines dramatic, with cloud drifting through the peaks. Take the view in first, then look for details in the valley, because the scale of the landscape is the point of the stop.
The lower botanical garden on foot
After the tour, guests can explore the lower botanical garden on their own, on foot. This is the unhurried part of the visit, where you choose the pace, stop at the plantings that catch your eye and return to the Flower Towers if you want a second look. A temperate rain forest garden has its own character, with large-leaved plants, ferns and shade-loving flowers set among water and stone.
Walk it slowly, and look at how the gardeners have worked with the forest rather than against it, leaving mature trees in place and tucking color around them. Families can let children set the pace, and photographers will find that the light changes quickly when clouds move over the valley.
Hours, tickets and rules
The visit follows a simple order: you ride the Rainforest Adventure Tour up through the forest in an 18-passenger golf cart, take in the view from the top, and then walk the lower botanical garden by yourself. The cart ride is the guided part, and the garden afterward is yours to explore on foot, so the day has a natural shape from the first minute to the last.
Because the tour and the self-guided garden are the two parts of the experience, plan your time around both rather than treating the garden as an afterthought. The ride gives you the forest and the panorama, and the walk gives you the flowers, the Flower Towers and a chance to linger over what you liked best.
The tour uses carts rather than trails for the climb, which means the high part of the property is reached by vehicle. The lower garden, by contrast, is a place you cover on foot, so wear shoes that suit a damp garden.
How to get to Glacier Gardens
Visitors arrive by air or by sea, and that shapes every Juneau day, including this one.
Travelers come off a cruise ship, since Juneau receives a daily influx of thousands of visitors from cruise ships between May and September. Others arrive on the Alaska Marine Highway System, whose ferry terminal is in Auke Bay, 13.8 miles from Juneau on Glacier Highway. Ferries run regularly throughout Southeast Alaska, and the closest port with a road connection to Juneau is Haines, about a five-hour ride by regular ferry or a two-hour ride on a catamaran ferry.
Once in Juneau, you are reaching a garden set in Mendenhall Valley, the same valley you look out over from the top of the tour. Mendenhall Glacier is 13 miles from downtown Juneau and near the airport, and visitors can drive directly to it, which helps place the valley on your mental map of the area. Glacier Gardens makes a natural companion to the glacier, since both belong to the same stretch of country and offer very different views of it.
When to visit Glacier Gardens
The cruise season is the busiest stretch in Juneau, running from May through September, when thousands of ship visitors come into town each day. If you are in Juneau during those months, expect the city’s attractions to feel lively, and plan your garden visit knowing that other travelers have the same idea.
For the wider Juneau trip, wildlife adds a reason to come in the shoulder of the season. Visitors in Juneau are likely to see bears, bald eagles or humpback whales, especially from April through November, so a garden visit can sit alongside a day on the water or a wildlife tour. Wildlife tours around Juneau can bring travelers close to black bears, Dall’s porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, mountain goats and Sitka blacktail deer, which makes for a well-rounded stay when you pair them with the forest and flowers.
Weather matters less here than at a viewpoint-only stop, because the rain forest is appealing in any light. A soft, gray day brings out the moss and ferns, while a clear one gives the widest view of the valley and mountains at the top of the tour. Choose the day that suits the rest of your plans, and let the forest do the rest.
Tips for your visit
Think of Glacier Gardens as a visit in two parts and give each part its due. The cart ride is a sit-down experience through the Tongass, so it suits anyone who prefers not to climb on foot, while the lower garden is a walk you can shorten or lengthen as you like. Bring a camera for the Flower Towers and the valley panorama, and clothing that copes with a damp forest.
It combines well with other Juneau outings. Juneau’s historic district is small and walkable, with several sights, and the city’s museum galleries rotate their exhibitions, so there is room for an indoor stop on a wetter day. Perseverance Theatre, nationally acclaimed, offers performances if your stay includes an evening.
For a bigger day, Juneau also offers glacier landing tours by small plane or helicopter, with hiking or dog-sledding on the ice, and boat charters to fish for salmon. Set against those, Glacier Gardens is the quiet, green counterpoint, a place to slow down and look closely at plants and trees.
Families will find the format forgiving, since the ride is seated and the garden is self-paced. The forest tour is by cart, while the lower botanical garden is explored on foot.
Good to know before you go
Juneau cannot be reached by road, so every trip here begins with a flight, a ferry or a ship, and timing your garden visit around that arrival is the main logistical point. In summer the city fills with cruise passengers, so expect company on the main attractions. Wildlife around Juneau is a chance, not a promise, and the forest at Glacier Gardens is best enjoyed for what it offers on the day: flowers, moss, a slow ride and a wide view of the valley.
Sources
- Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure, Juneau (https://www.glaciergardens.com/), checked October 11, 2026
- Travel Juneau, things to do (https://www.traveljuneau.com/things-to-do/), checked October 11, 2026
- Wikivoyage, Juneau (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Juneau), checked October 11, 2026