Driving to Spring – a Skagway day

When I woke up yesterday morning it was -26°C here! (that’s -15°F). The weather forecast showed 42F and mostly sunny for Skagway, so when my buddy Rob phoned, he and I quickly decided that heading south to Alaska was a better idea than working 🙂

For the first 70 miles or so the light wasn’t as good for photography as we had expected but south of Fraser the patterns the deep, wind-carved snow made were beautiful.

The deep snow near Fraser, BC on April 3, 2009.

Ah, Spring in the White Pass, when the snow is only 15 feet deep! There are a lot of ore trucks on the road, getting as much copper ore to Skagway as possible before the ice bridge goes out.

Deep snow in the White Pass on April 3, 2009.

Check out those snowmobile tracks!!

Snowmobile tracks head up the highest peaks in the White Pass. April 3, 2009.

Even though it was only 35 degrees F in Skagway (with a bitterly cold north wind), a crew was busy landscaping more of the sidewalks to the Railroad Dock. The first cruise ships of the season arrive in Skagway in less than a month.

Landscaping starts near the Railroad Docks in Skagway on April 4, 2009 - with the temperature at 35° F.

Back up in the White Pass on the way home, the plows were hard at work on the Alaska side. The “Welcome to Alaska” sign at the summit is removed for the winter, but has been re-installed in the past few days.

Snowplows working at the 'Welcome to Alaska' sign at the border north of Skagway. April 3, 2009.