Enough with working – back into the mountains!
After 3 days of clearing snow at the house and cabin, I needed a break on Wednesday, and I’d offered to give a visitor from France a ride to Skagway in any case.
I picked Louise up at the Lead Dog Inn in town. I’d had a look at the reviews of the hostel at TripAdvisor, and wow!. Some loved it and some hated it, but there are a couple of very bad reviews, so I was curious as to what Louise thought. She had no real opinion, though – it was “okay”, and what she expected. She had just come up to Whitehorse to see what a Yukon winter felt like, and was disappointed – no deep cold, nothing of note at all 🙁
The weather forecast was for some cloud and some sun but it was quite dreary all the way to Skagway – flat light that resulted in no photo stops. I took Louise to the ferry terminal to check in, then we went for lunch before I took her back to wait for the boat. I had to be back in Whitehorse for a 4:00 meeting, so I didn’t do any wandering either.
There were 4 rebuilt ballast cars for the WP&YR back on the dock, so I stopped to get a few photos of them for my friends at the White Pass & Yukon Route Fan List.
I was on my way north again just before 12:30 Yukon time, and the sun finally started to make an appearance. The pass got 5-6 inches of fresh snow overnight, so everything was particularly attractive. This was shot at Mile 3.5.
Incredible country.
The peaks above Goat Lake. I need to hike up to the lake again – it’s been 20 years or so now.
It will be interesting to see what the engineers studying replacement of the William Moore Bridge the past couple of summers have come up with.
It’s tough being a tree up here – growth is so slow, a 6-foot-high tree can be over a hundred years old.
Nearing the summit of the White Pass – the highway can be seen along the upper right of the photo.
Boundary Falls now, and last September. [Edit: the name has now standardized to International Falls]
Looking back to the south from the border. I posted this photo on my Facebook page that evening, with the comment: “If I ever get bored of the drive to Skagway, please start shoveling dirt on me.”
The sunshine didn’t last very long, but it was great to have it through the pass.
Summit Lake.
Seen at the Fraser Canada Customs post – an artifact of Cold War communications? 🙂
The new Canada/Yukon agreement to maintain the parking lot at Log Cabin isn’t working. Until yesterday, I don’t remember the last time I saw it completely inaccessible.
Highway crews hard at work along Tutshi Lake.
The more often I shoot this location on Dail Peak, the more I’m impressed by it. I wonder how high I could get?
While I was in Skagway, I went to the post office to pick up a couple of new additions to my library, some reference material for a future bucket-list trip, and a fine copy of the 1906 Geographic Dictionary of Alaska, one of the cornerstone books for any Alaska historical library. In the book is a very good section on Alaska explorers, many that few people have ever heard of, that I posted many years ago
Now, back to real work – I’ve got another couple of busy days ahead. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this drive with me again.
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