Trip Update #4

If you click on a photograph, it will enlarge and should place a row of thumbnails on the bottom of your screen that you can navigate.

White Horse, Yukon Territory

Hi Country RV Park

Our site (yellow Jeep)

Several old military vehicles, in disrepair, on display

It rained all night and some in the morning. During a clear break we took a drive to the top of Grey Mountain - an advertised viewpoint. It turned out also to be a rather large telecommunications site. Three miles of pavement, three miles of maintained gravel and three miles of rocky water channeled road.

We took photos of the SS Klondike, a sternwheeler that plied the Yukon River years ago. Now a historic site and museum. We watched a short film on the use of the River Boats back in the days, before the railroad.

Looking up Yukon River toward the SS Klondike

From there it was off to find Staples, with a stop at the Yukon Tourist Center, for another short film on the Yukon.

We then made a visit to the Log Church, which opened in October 1900. This was a very nicely done restoration.

Photos by Debbie Grossie

Next to find an ice cream shop. A small general store, Riverview Grocery, was recommended. The store is very small and has vanilla and chocolate malt ice cream $2.50 per cone - they were very good.

The place was crowded with more than half the people just stopping in for Ice Cream. After stopping at Staples and buying 500 sheet of 8.5x14 when we only needed three, we stopped at the Whitehorse Transportation museum to look at a DC-3 that is also a wind vane.

The aircraft is mounted on a spindle and will face into the wind even in the gentlest of breezes. The aircraft has been removed and relocated at least three times.

We then checked out a couple RV Washes and found the price to be either $2 a foot or $3 a foot. Next it was to check a refueling location for the morning and to get gas in the Jeep. Self service, but a nice female attendant dispensed the fuel and provided insight into the weather. Basically it snowed September through April, May was nice, then in June it started raining and continued through August.

Some people know how to travel for any situation

Monday, June 24 - Up and out of the park early. First a stop at Soapy's car, truck and RV wash - $2 per foot, but got a nice job, so gave him a good tip.

After fueling, it was off to Skagway - Within the first fifteen miles saw three Black Bears (sow and two cubs) and three Brown Bears (also a Sow and two cubs). The road to Skagway started out like the rest of the Alaska Highway, but shortly after Carcross, YT the road began to climb through the mountains, got narrow and then from Frazer on it was pretty much all downhill into Skagway. 

The scenery was great -

A stop at the US Custom/Border Patrol checkpoint where we were asked for passports and if we had purchased any fruits or vegetables in Whitehorse, then sent on our way.

We arrived at Pullen RV Park about 1PM local time - PDT plus one hour. We emptied our holding tanks and then backed into probably the biggest site they have in this section of the park. We discovered in this park, as in a couple of other parks we have been in or have been told about, that providing a site for a 38 foot motor home is a challenge. The RV Parks, like lots of the State and National Parks, were built before the RV increased in size. In this park I saw maybe two other sites that we could fit into.

Train tracks and sidewalk behind the Motor Home

Waiting on the train to pass to get to RV Park

They do have an overflow area, which provides power and water only, on the edge of the boat marina parking lot. They would be able to handle a few more large RVs there. The RV Park is located easy walking distance from the cruise ship docks and downtown, and right along the Skagway White Pass Rail Line. We connected utilities, put a couple window screens on and put the ham radio antenna up, then off to do laundry.

It seems that there is only one laundromat in town. It has six washers, two large commercial washers and eight dryers. $2.50 for the standard Washer, $5.75 or $5.00 for the commercial washers (depending on which one you use) and $0.25 gets you four minutes for the dryers. Because the commercial washers did not look like they rinsed the clothes well, we rewashed them without soap. It cost about $50 for this laundry run, where thus far we would have spent less than $40.

Walking the dog down by the boat dock, got some great pictures of the marina with the mountains reflected in the water.

Photo taken at 11 P.M. local or 2 A.M. Lubbock time

Across the street in the opposite direction was a small pond, fed by Pullen Creek,  that was a spawning area for several fish species.

With no Over-the-Air television and no satellite reception, we decided to stream some Amazon Prime shows. We had started watching Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s books while we were in Arizona, so we decided to try and get caught up on that series.

Today, Tuesday, June 25, we checked out the Skagway small boat marina. This also gave us a chance to see which cruise lines were in town. Today it was Holland America, two Princess, and a Celebrity ship. Celebrity being the smallest of the group.

Two ships side-by-side

Look familiar

As we found yesterday, the people from the cruise ships just came by the RV Park in droves headed to town and on excursions.

Then over to the Ferry Terminal to see a long line of Rental RVs lined up to board a ferry. Since the ferry was not in, we do not know where these folks planned to go. The inside of the ferry terminal had a couple of walls displaying things about the Klondike area.

Inside the Skagway Ferry Terminal

The airport area was next on the list. Appears everything flying out of this airport was "flight seeing" or charter to other locations in the vicinity. The helicopters also were flying out of an area close to this. There were four helicopters, all looked to be capable of handling three to five passengers. We watched them several times come into land one right after the other.

Next on the list was a trip out the Chilkoot Trail, also known as the Dyea Road, to the old town site of Dyea. Dyea during its time had more than 40,000 people and according to some, the actual start of the Klondike Trail to the gold fields. The road gave a beautiful vista over looking Skagway airport and the boat dock.

The eight mile road runs along and around the end of Nahuka Bay and crosses the Talya River. We found where one of the guide companies puts in their rafts to give the people a short raft ride down the Talya River.

Talking to one of the guides who was getting equipment ready, he told me that today they had fourteen trips and each one had at least 10 people. He told me that this particular excursion started with a twenty minute bus ride which put them off at a trailhead where they hiked a trail up the river to the launch point, then a about a 20 minute raft ride on the river, then about a twenty minute bus ride back to the ships. He felt it was probably one of the better off ship excursions offered. I asked if there were down days and he stated that in the past there was at least one day a week without a cruise ship in port, but this year they have had up to seven cruise ships in port at a time.

We then located the old Dyea town site. A small sign stated that it was the townsite and that there was no overnight parking. A trail lead to some rest rooms and then a couple interpretive signs. The signs stated that the town site, which was active in 1898, has been allowed to return to nature. They have markers for the location of the streets and what was there. The first interpretative sign said "Out in front of you there is a boat that was probably left there at high tide." I'll take their word that there was a boat there because I saw what looked like a deteriorated log sticking out of the ground. (sorry - terrible photo)

I did not progress any further as all you could see, except for the gravel walkway was trees.

Headed back to Skagway we stopped at the Chilkoot Trail Outpost.

This consists of a lodge and ten cabins.

The sign out front offered food and drink. They are a Bed and Breakfast, but also have a lunch and dinner menu. We talked to the waitress that was working, and she said that she was from Kansas, had come up to Alaska by car several weeks ago, found this place, loved it, drove back home and then purchased a one-way airline ticket to Juneau, returned to the lodge and started working there. The inside and outside of the lodge looks like it was built yesterday, though it is 20 years old. It and the cabins have been very well maintained. In talking to the owner, a very outspoken Republican, she retired 20 years ago and started building the lodge. She stated that she had a nephew in Texas in the petroleum business. She stated that her grandfather had been a logger, and her father had been in the oil industry in Alaska and that members of the family had worked on the pipeline and other industries. She is very fond of the Dyea area and feels that Skagway, which the name, she stated came from the indian word Skagwa meaning bad wind, was taking to much credit for being the start of the Klondike Trail. She stated that she planned to sell the Lodge and spend her time with grandkids.

In conversation, we stated that we had talked about taking the ferry to Juneau, but the cost and time was pretty outrageous. She suggested that we check out the High Speed Ferry to Haines, AK. She stated that Haines a a beautiful town and had an Eagle/Raptors Recovery Center.

We left the lodge and continued our journey to the RV Park. We arrived to find it pretty warm in the Motor Home. We had left the windows open and the fan on, but the outside temperatures got into the mid 70s and things got warm. We started the A/C, got it cooled down, them left for dinner at the Skagway Fish Company which was a stone's throw from the RV Park. Deb had the Halibut sandwich while I had the Halibut Fish and Chips. Both very good. Then it was was home and a couple more episodes of Bosch on Amazon Prime.

Skagway - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - No rain again this morning

We parked on Second Ave about a block off Broadway, then walked the boardwalk of Skagway on Broadway. Skagway has done there best to put you back in the gold rush era. The sidewalks are constructed of 2x6 making a wooden boardwalk.

Some of the stores and restaurants feature clerks and wait staff dressed in period clothing.

But, it is a tourist town with a one to five jewelry stores on every corner.

We went into numerous shops, all selling the same merchandise, with just a little different take on it. Sad to know in the winter time that the town gets pretty much abandoned. In fact when we were here in 2004, it was late August and a lot of the stores were closed. The best store stays open year round. The hardware store. This store seems to have everything that you might need for your home, RV and auto. It is a great store to wander around in. Narrow aisles, and the shelves stacked floor to ceiling. Plus any kind of sporting goods you might want. I loved it. 

Pretty much ended the day with an Ice Cream cone from the Kone Kompany, then back to the Motor Home. Relaxed, had hotdogs for dinner and then watched a couple more episodes of Bosch.

Thursday came with no rain, a few clouds that look like they could bring rain, but did not.

Foot traffic behind the Motor Home was heavy as it is every morning, tapers off in the early afternoon.

Decided to checked out the local IGA store. Found it to be small, crowded and a lot of stock in unopened boxes on the floor waiting to be put on the shelves. Nothing that we desperately needed.

Checked out the few shops that we did not get to yesterday - again - same stuff. Picked up some Carmel Corn, and then had a Doughboy, which we would call an elephant ear. 

Friday we went back on the "strip" to see if we could find a T-Shirt that Debbie had seen the day before. About the only thing she remembered was the color of the shirt and that the store was on the right hand side of the street. What are the words of that song "looking in the lost and found of a border town for a diamond ring" or some such. Of course, nearly every store sells T-shirts. Between T-Shirt shops and jewelry stores, you are hard pressed to find anything else - Oh, wait, the hardware store - This is the old time hardware store that has everything. They are an ACE Hardware affiliate, but their stock goes well past that. You name it, they probably had it. OK, they did not have a 1 1/8" 1/2 inch drive socket that I needed, but then again, neither did Canadian Tire which is a large tool, sporting and outdoor goods store. Oh, yeah, I already told you about the hardware store - well since we were close I had to go back.

The search was for naught, so we stopped at the Skagway Brewing Company for an Amber Red brew, halibut sandwich and halibut fish and chips. Then we returned to the Motor Home for two more episodes of Bosch. Skagway is a very beautiful town, with a great vista no matter where you turn. But, in the winter time you just might be snowed in, literally. Only one road in and out