Cruise in Review: Skagway, Alaska

Wednesday, June 10 we woke up to what you would call, "Real Alaska Weather", cloudy, rainy, windy and cold...Up to that point, we had had sunny and beautiful days...but that was okay, because our excursion for the day was a 4 hour train ride up the White Pass & Yukon Route railway, so we would be in a train all morning.

 

 

Back in 1896, some local prospectors stumbled upon a nugget of gold while exploring up in the Klondike, it triggered the Klondike gold rush of 1898 when it was estimated that over 100,000 prospectors "stampeded" up this trail to make their claim on a piece of land, hoping to strike it rich...some did, most didn't and by the early 1900's, it was all but over, but this trail that runs 130 miles up from Skagway into the Yukon will forever be remembered for those who sought their fortune.  The train we took runs up the pass until we enter just over the boarder into Canada (about 2 hours) then reverses its course and we come back into Skagway.

 

The picture above is called the "ghost bridge" because it has been abandoned since the 1960's because it was not strong enough to support the trains anymore...the day we went as we got up in the upper elevations the clouds enveloped it and it really felt like a "ghost bridge"!

We came back down and explored the town...there was one of old trains that made the run back in it's day and a "snow blower" used on the front of the train to remove snow from the tracks...

 

From Skagway, we left in the late afternoon for an almost 2 day float back to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada...that night we got a new towel animal, a frog!!!  Thanks for tuning in!!