A day trip to windy and very wet Skagway, Alaska

Posted On October 5, 2022

I had my daughter up for a visit for 3 days over this past weekend, and the one thing she had on her must-do list was seeing Skagway again. On Sunday we headed down, with strong winds and flood warnings in the weather forecast.

The Fall colours were mostly just past their peak but there were still some very bright spots. That’s Tutshi Lake ahead, at 12:35.

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I drove for the first 90 minutes or so then had to pass the wheel over to Cathy. The split rear seat in her Jeep was half down so it was a great spot to share with Bella and Tucker. Road noise (well, any noise) is very hard on me now, so I had to wear my noise-cancelling headphones with some calm Blues playing.

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With much of the roof being glass, it’s very scenic back there, too 🙂

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The first order of business in Skagway was to get some lunch. That turned out to be much more difficult than we’d expected. Although with no cruise ships in it wasn’t a huge surprise to find the restaurants that cater largely to that market closed, even “local” places were closed.

While checking on the Fish Company, I saw with great sadness that 7 of my favourite White Pass locomotives are at the Railroad Dock, ready to be shipped out and sold. I predict that this decision will be regretted.

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We ended up at the Red Onion Saloon. The decor is great, of course, the food was good, the service okay. ***½

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After lunch we drove over to the mouth of the Skagway River, and were shocked at the conditions. I don’t think I’d ever seen muddy water as far as we could see down Taiya Inlet. The next photo shows Yakutania Point – the wind removed any thought about going for a walk there.

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I drove out to Dyea to make getting the photos I wanted much easier. The water was very rough near the beach and the mouth of the Taiya River.

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The Taiya River!

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The Taiya River from the same area on a normal day.

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Further up the Taiya River.

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The Taiya River Bridge, and looking upriver from the bridge. The Chilkoot Trail begins on the right side of the river here.

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Another photo of the bridge, with us on the large gravel beach that normally exists there.

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We didn’t go out to the Dyea Flats as we normally do – conditions there were unlikely to be fun. Just before 4:30, we started the drive home. I was tired, but kept driving for photography reasons.

There were some wonderful waterfalls along the highway climbing the White Pass. This was one of the best ones.

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Pitchfork Falls, one of the two best-known waterfalls, was very impressive, and prompted a brief video despite the wind noise.

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This may have been a man-made landslide along the railway line, as there seems to have been some blasting there as well. The very large new locomotives are apparently causing a lot of problems with the tight curves along the line.

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Spray from the largest of the waterfalls was blowing right across the highway. Sometimes I stand down there really close to the falls because I love the spray – today I didn’t! 🙂

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Just past the summit I pulled over to get a couple of photos of the waterfalls along the International Falls hiking trail, and asked Cathy to drive from here. There’s a creek crossing at the start of the trail – normally about mid-calf deep, it was probably mid-thigh today, and I posted that information on the hiking group I belong to.

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We got the warmest September on record in Whitehorse, but snow levels will undoubtedly be coming down in a hurry very soon.

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I put my headphones on and slept for a while – I woke up for a few minutes as we neared Dail Peak, and this was my view. There were quite a few thin-horned sheep and mountain goats visible on the slopes.

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Tucker’s primary mission in life now is taking care of me. This was his chosen spot for the ride home from Skagway. I am so lucky to have him.

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Back in the office, I’m almost finished my slide-scanning project – 27,000 have been done and 3,000 remain. Depending on what else I get into, that’s 2-3 weeks work. I now have almost 192,000 images on an external hard drive. Cathy asked a few days ago what I wanted done with them, and I have no idea. The MacBride Museum wants the Yukon ones – perhaps 20,000 – but maybe the rest just get deleted. Oh well…