A side trip to Skagway, Alaska

The border is up there

From Whitehorse, its a surprisingly short distance to the Alaskan panhandle.  Its also a good cheat, we could get to Alaska the easy way.  So, we decided to drive over the border and visit Skagway.  What an amazing drive.  All of the sudden huge mountains appeared, complete with the now de rigueur beautiful mountain lake at their feet.  We climbed into tundra country that consisted of miles of jumbled rock and stunted trees.  Winters up there must be amazing. 



The Land Between the Border Stations

After you leave the Canadian border post, you have another 26 miles of mountain driving until you reach the White Pass.  As mountain passes go, this one it the steepest. longest and most impressive I have ever been on, and I've been on a few!  In one place they gave up on gluing the road to the side of the mountain and used a suspension bridge between two granite slabs.

When you get out of the pass, you enter the US.  I'll bet the Canadians border officers are jealous of the US guys because they don't have to climb the pass like the Canadians whose border is on top of the mountains.

We had been to Skagway before by Holland America cruise ship.  And there in the harbor was a Holland America cruise ship.  But instead of wandering around looking lost like people off the ship were, we were cruising in a white pickup truck.  Much cooler.

Skagway takes a short time to tour, but the history is something else.  At the turn of the 20th century, people were pouring into the town from San Francisco to make the trip to the Klondike gold fields.  Some of the old buildings are preserved and having just come down the White Pass, you had real sympathy for those souls who had to hike up it pulling a mule.

Looking towards Skagway on the road to Dyea

If you take the only left turn leaving Skagway, you go down 9 miles or so of dirt road to a ghost town called Dyea which was the shipping port for many of the goods sent to the Klondike and also the beginning of the Chilkoot trail.  This pass was the only one useable in the winter.  There is a famous picture of a solid line of people and mules walking up the pass. 

The road ends in a historic park that contains what is left of Dyea.  There is one false front and a few timbers to mark what was the main street of town and there is a cemetery called slide cemetery.








 This was too much, what is a slide cemetery?  It turns out that there was a freak thaw early one spring and an avalanche killed many of the people on the trail.  People rushed to the mountain to try and rescue those trapped.

 In the end, 76 people were buried in the cemetery and it became known as slide cemetery.  Oh and there was a forest service notice that a bear had tried to open hikers packs two days before.  This was amusing until I found bear scat on the trail back in the woods.  But, I didn't smell bear.  Good enough.

The start of the Chilkoot trail

The trip back got us home in time for a late dinner.....a fun day.