My Trails

Friday, June 2

I waited until about 10am before I road into Skagway. The temperature was still in the 50’s, but I drove slow enough that the wind didn’t penetrate my jacket. I stopped a couple of times to check out some sights I missed on the way in. One turnout on the Dyea road gives you a good view of the bay and the cruise ships that are docked there. I could see two ships parked in the bay – one was a Carnival cruise ship and I couldn’t make out the name of the other.

I thought Skagway would be mobbed with people but it was not too bad. I walked through the Park Service museum and watched a movie on the early Gold Rush history. I went through a few shops that had souvenirs and trinkets for sale, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t help out the Skagway economy today. Although, I saw many tourists from the ships spending lots of money.

I’m still debating whether I want to ride the train up over White Pass. It is quite expensive but people that have done it say it is beautiful. I will pass the same route of the train on my drive back to Whitehorse and get to enjoy the scenery again. After a few hours in town I road back to camp and hiked about a mile on the Chilkoot Trail.

Saturday, June 3

Today was a lazy day. It rained again in the night and the morning stayed cold and cloudy. In the afternoon the sun broke through and I went for a ride on Honda. I found a new campground on the other side of the inlet, not far from the ghost town and ruins of Dyea, and it is free. I have been wondering why no one has been camping near me and now I know why. If I decide to stay a few more days I will move over on Monday. The nice thing is that I got 3 bars of 3G cell signal over there.

During the night at Whitehorse Walmart, I was awaked by the heavy patter of rain on Minnie’s roof. This was the first rain since entering Canada over a week ago. I was hoping the rain would pass soon and give me a few more good days. The next stop was in Skagway and there is lots to see there.

By morning the rain had stopped but it was still foggy and cloudy. I was wishing the sky would clear and give me good views of the mountains and glacial lakes on my drive into Skagway. I left quite early and fought rush hour traffic for a few miles, and then it was sparce traffic until I crossed back into BC and started down the long mountain grade and back into the US. The sky even cleared out and the sun broke through a few times.

When I reached the South Klondike Highway, I started to meet tour busses full of tourist coming from the cruise ships in the bay. I think I met 30 small tour busses and maybe 20 large Greyhound type busses coming up the mountain. The scenery really is spectacular along the route and there are several historical sites relating to early gold discovery. When I hit the US border I asked the custom officer if all these people were from cruise ships. He said there were over 10,000 people in town today. I guess it is like that every day!

When I reached the end of the mountain road, before I drove into Skagway, I turned onto a side road to the little town of Dyea. Dyea has a lot of history of its own: For one thing it is the trailhead for the famous Chilkoot Trail. In 1897 thousands of Gold Rush Stampeders made base camp in Dyea, then climbed over Chilkoot Pass on their way to the goldfields around Dawson City. I wanted to see where this trail started, but more importantly, I wanted to check on a campground run by the Park Service.

The road in to the campground and Dyea was narrow and curvy and not designed for big rigs. Minnie has been in lots worse places, so she had no trouble making the drive. We snagged a campsite, paid for four nights, and unloaded Honda for exploring. This was the first time Honda has climbed down from the back of Minnie since we were in Utah.

I didn’t want to go into Skagway today, so instead road up the road to check out a couple places talked about in my guidebook. I first stopped at the Chilkoot Trailhead and read the history of the trail, then drove back to see the ruins of Dyea, a town that boomed to thousands in 1898 and all but became a ghost town a couple years later. After that I drove to a place they call tidal flats, and later looked around a cemetery for many Stampeders caught in an avalanche in 1898.

Every back road around Dyea was filled with bicycle riders, horseback riders, scooter rental riders, and vans taking people up the river to float down on rubber boats. The people on those cruise ships really know how to play! I hate to think what mobs there will be in Skagway tomorrow!

I have very little cell service here. It comes and goes, but mostly goes. I will have to wait till tomorrow when I go to Skagway to post this. But if it rains again I will stay home.

As I travel further north into the Yukon I can see the influence of the Native culture. This is the land of the Tlingit people. For centuries the Tlingit have hunted, fished and trapped the Northwood. When the white men came to this region they brought with them many diseases that the Natives had no immunity to. It kind of devistated their people for a while.

Nowhere is it more evident that I am in Native land than when I stop at stores and gas stations along the highway. The Walmart where I am camped tonight is staffed with mostly beautiful Native people. I’m sure there are many here that are the combination of different races as our world gets smaller.

I made it to Whitehorse today. The highway is still in pretty good shape but there were several places where construction was underway. The road construction that makes the most mess of Minnie is when they take out the old road, grade a new subsurface of dirt, and then water it down to keep the dust from flying. The dust would be unsafe for visibility, but the watered down dirt makes mud that likes to coat the sides of Minnie and stick to Honda on the back.

On one section of construction, one lane was blocked for several miles with a pilot car leading a string of vehicles through one at a time. I got there just at the end of line and had to wait 15 minutes for my turn.

I struck up a conversation with the Native girl working the Stop/Slow sign while I waited. I asked her about the road to Skagway and she said I would run into construction that way too unless I left at 6:00 am. Looks like I will hit construction. I told her I was very interested in the Gold Rush history of the area, and I don’t remember how we got to talking about it, but I mentioned I liked to watch the show Gold Rush on Discovery. She said she lives in Dawson City and sees many of the stars on the show. She told me that Parker, one of the stars that always acts so irritating and bullying on the show is actually a sweetheart. Ha!

I hope I can find a campground near Skagway. What I would like to do is unload Honda and see the area the easy way. My Milepost guidebook tells me the road to one of the campground is not recommended for motorhomes over 23′. I just make it in under that, so I will see.

Two silly traditions along the Alaskan Highway in Watson Lake an beyond are the Signpost Forest and Rock Signs. The Signpost Forest has thousands of signs nailed to wooden posts over the last few years. Many of the signs are homemade and others just highway markers. A lot of the signs depict a travelers information as a kind of memorial to say they were here.

North of Watson Lake the traveler can see many names and messages made with rocks along the shoulder of the road. I guess the pilgrimage to Alaska brings out the desire to leave your mark along the trail – like a type of petroglyph or graffiti to future generations.

I spent the night at a big turnout somewhere between Watson Lake and Teslin, Yukon. I may have been back in British Columbia because the road dips back south for a bit. There is not much to tell about the drive yesterday afternoon and this morning. I have dropped back out of the mountains into rolling hills, lakes, and rivers. I can see snow capped mountains up ahead. I should be near Whitehorse tonight.

Today was a wildlife day. Shortly before I reached Fort Nelson I saw a black spot up ahead beside the road. I knew immediately that it was a bear, so I stopped and took a few pictures. He seemed not the least bit frightened at Minnie parked a few yards away and continued to munch the new grass along the shoulder. All in all I would see 5 more bears in the miles past Fort Nelson. The last one was a full grown beauty that must have weighed 500 pounds (or 226kg because he lives in Canada).

I entered the mountains today. The road became quite rough, narrow, and curvy so I didn’t make very good time. I passed by Summit Lake that was still completely frozen over with patches of snow along its banks. A mile later I stopped in the road to watch several Stone Sheep licking the edge of the shoulder. I think they like the salt left over from winter treatment of the highway.

I crossed numerous rivers. So many rivers to cross is what gave the early builders of the Alaskan Highway fits. All the early bridges constructed by the military were made of wood and most of them washed away in heavy floods. They are all replaced now with solid steel and concrete structures.

The highway passes by Muncho Lake for seven miles. This was another stretch of highway that gave the early military builders headaches. The highway was eventually rerouted, but one local told me that several machines went over the edge into the deep lake where they remain today.

I took quite a few breaks from driving today. With the twisting road, I couldn’t use cruise control and my leg got tired. It was 3:30 by the time I reached my destination for the night – Liard River Hot Springs Provential Park. They charge $26, have no hookups, not even a dump station, no wifi, but they have a hot spring you can go soak in, and that’s the main thing. I may go soak again in the morning before I leave.