A family adventure day to Skagway
Cathy hasn’t joined the dogs and I on a adventure in a very long time, but on Friday she took the day off work to escort us to Skagway. Bella and Tucker are always happy to ride in Cathy’s Jeep Cherokee – it’s much more comfortable for them than my car.
We got off to a very late start, not leaving the house until a few minutes after 11:00. The sun had risen at 10:08, at it was -22°C when we started out.
It was soon apparent that some of the large lakes weren’t yet frozen, and there was a lot of fog down Carcross way.
It’s difficult to capture in a photo, but I really like way the sun looks in fog.
By 11:34 it had warmed up to -14°C, and it was obvious that it was open water on Lake Bennett that was producing much of the fog.
I wasn’t feeling very good when we left home, so Cathy was driving. That gave me a chance to get some photos not normally available to me. I always like seeing and photographing semis and snowplows, though I do usually cringe at the thought of another rock hitting the windhield.
The new bridge across the Nares River at Carcross opened a few weeks ago, and the old wooden bridge is slowly being torn apart.
As we drove south from Carcross the fog dissipated, as Tagish Lake was frozen. At the Venus Mine, the weather was looking great ahead.
We made our usual stop at Tutshi Lake to let the kids play for a few minutes. The amount of snow this year is extremely low.
Tutshi Lake was still open and some fog was forming, but a north wind blew it away quickly.
I took the wheel when we left Tutshi Lake, and our next stop was at the White Pass summit. The next photo was shot right at the Canada-USA border. The wind was brutal – the wind chill must have been nearing -30, and there were no sledders or skiers. I processed the image as an HDR to bring out the detail.
Another DHDR image. The ground blizzard was pretty cool, if a bit disorienting.
Once on the sea side of the summit, the temperature started climbing as usual. It was up to -10 as we descended towards the William Moore Bridge.
Once out of the shelter of some curves in the valley, the north wind hit us and the ground blizzard got even better 🙂
We got to Skagway at about 12:30 Alaska time (1:30 Yukon), had an excellent lunch at The Station, and by 1:30 were back on the road. I wasn’t feeling good again, so Cathy was driving and other than going over to the mouth of the Dyea River to see the seals that are aways fishing there, didn’t do any wandering.
There was no traffic on the highway other than semis and snow-clearing equipment, though a few vehicles were parked down in the sheltered forest areas – sledders and skiers. The reflection of the lights of the B-train fuel tanker in the next photo may give you an idea of the condition of the road – yes, thats ice.
Icy or not, it’s spectacularly beautiful in the winter.
Another snowplow doing some fine-tuning of the shoulder.
A grader and the rotary snowplow doing some heavy moving.
The snow-clearing crews were sure busy this day.
Clearing Customs at Fraser was quick and simple as usual.
You can see the fog rising off Tutshi Lake in the next photo.
We stopped at Tutshi Lake again, to give both the dogs and me a break.
Driving back to the highway from the Tutshi Lake parking area.
A final shot of Dail Peak. I slept much of the hour from here to home.
This game cam was in my post office box at Skagway – now we can get some photos of the moose and other critters that pass through our property 🙂
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