My Trails

They were called Stampeders. The Tlingit call them a name in their Native language that meant greenhorns. They were mostly young men, coming from all over the world, headed to the Klondike to make their fortune in the newly discovered goldfields. They came by the thousands, landing in Skagway on large ships and transferring their goods and supplies to small boats to be offloaded in a town called Dyea, a short hike to the start of a trail that would take them 40 miles over the Chilkoot pass to the Yukon River.

I have always liked trails with history. It is probably one of the reasons I fell in love with the Appalachian Trail. Like the AT the Chilkoot Trail is not easy. Royal Canadian Mounted Police stressed that all prospectors take a ton of supplies with them in to the Yukon so that they would not starve for a year. This required many trips up over the steepest part of the pass. They either had to hire the Tlingit people to carry their supplies or make several trips up and down the mountain.

There were stories about the prospectors leaving heavy items along the trail as they struggled with their load up the mountain. I saw it first hand on the AT. All along the approach trail to the top of Springer Mountain where the AT starts, I saw all sorts of items left from someones pack as they fought to lighten their load. And it was no different back in 1898 as the prospectors set off with high hopes and every piece of hardware they thought would make life easier in the wilds of the Klondike. They soon realized that the burden was too great to carry.

The Chilkoot Trail has been known as the world’s longest museum. They say you can see camp stoves, cast iron cookware, shoes, and all sorts of odds and ends discarded by the trail. I wanted to see some of those items tossed away from their packs, so this morning I decided to hike a couple miles up the trail.

The trail starts out by the river and climbs steeply several hundred feet up the side of the mountain. The temperature today was the warmest it has been this year and the humidity was wicked. I was sweating and breathing heavy right off the bat. As soon as I started to sweat the bugs found me – they love the smell of sweat – and I had to stop and apply DEET.

The trail finally decended to the river and the walking was easy then. I kept walking another mile hoping to see some remnants of a time gone forever, but I never found a single man-made object. After over 100 years anything left along the trail has been swallowed up by nature. No one is allowed to touch or disturb any artifact from the gold rush time, so the moss and digestive action of the forest has hid any hint of an item cast off.

I reached a signpost that told I had come 1.6 miles. It seemed further than that in my out-of-condition state. I pushed on for another half mile hoping to see something historical but it was not to be. The woods were eerily quiet and I began to think of brown bears while out all by myself. I never worried about black bears in anyplace I’ve hiked but grizzlies give me the willies. The sign at the trailhead said to never hike alone and make noise so the bears aren’t surprised. I started to sing.

On the return hike I met many people. All in all I ran into seven groups of 8 to 10 people in each group. I asked one group how many ships were docked in Skagway and was told that four were there now. One of the guides said it would be like this the rest of the summer. He told me that soon there will be groups of thruhikers going all the way over the pass to Bennett Lake.

It was a good hike even though I didn’t see any artifacts. The park service has improved the trail by making steps up some of the climbs and they have constructed bridges over some streams. I know the old timers didn’t have bridges or steps, but I was kind of glad I did. If Daryl would fly up here and hike with me, we could do the whole thing!

The weather has been gorgeous today. I think it hit 80 this afternoon. The snow up on the mountains is shrinking with all the warm weather and sunshine. The only drawback will be the bugs coming out to feast and the sun shining in the window at 11 pm when I’m trying to sleep.

There was enough sunlight today that I got a complete, one hundred percent charge on my batteries. I’m thinking that I may mount my other two solar panels on the roof of Minnie when I get back south this fall. There are advantages with portable panels, but when I travel I have enough stuff to put away and get out!

I rode into Skagway to get groceries today. I’m sure I bought too much and paid way too much, but I told myself before I went in the store to buy what I wanted and not even look at prices. If I look at prices in a tourist town, I usually end up getting nothing. I have enough food to last another week if I want to stay that long.

When I got back to camp I took a walk over to the Dyea town ruins. I have walked through there a couple times now but not been to every corner. When I turned down a path to a new boardwalk the park service is building, I met a park employee.

I told her that I had a hard time figuring out where the town was because the buildings have rotted away and there are no signs to tell where things were.

“Your really not supposed to be in here while we are working on the paths.” She explained.

I played innocent. “Ah. I just walked over from the campground, I didn’t know.”

“Oh. That’s why you didn’t see the signs. It’s alright we just don’t want anyone to get hurt when there are machines working. If you come back in an hour we will be gone. I put up some signs down there to tell about what you’re looking at.”

She was very nice. We walked back up the path, made a couple remarks about the nice weather, and I asked her why this campground was free and the park service campground on the other side of the inlet was pay? She wasn’t sure but said this campground was run by the city and not the park service. I’m just glad I found it.

In the morning I moved about 5 miles to another campground. I’m just across the inlet from my last camp, but I like this campground a lot better. For one thing it has cell service. I’m only getting three bars of 3G, but it seems like lightning compared to what I got across the river. There is still construction in the camp and down the road from here in the historic Dyea townsite.

There is no charge to stay here. The only thing I can think is that the campground is so new, and still being constructed, that they haven’t yet started collecting money to stay here. I will probably stay here a few days and recoup some money by averaging out what I paid in the last camp.

I haven’t figured out how to get water yet. I still have a few days supply and I should be OK with my tanks. The one thing I need to resupply is food. My fridge is getting pretty empty. I’ll probably ride into town tomorrow and pick up a few basics. I don’t want to spend a lot on food because I will be back in Whitehorse in a few days.

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.