Aug 15 – Leaving Skagway

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We drove partway back up the Klondike Highway out of Skagway. We didn’t leave the campground until about 11 to give time for the sun to get high enough to shine in the valley on the way up.

To pass some time in the morning I went out for a walk to examine the new crop of cruise ships. Two Norwegian Cruise Lines ships had lots of decorations. All of the other ships have been very plain.

One of them had lowered all its lifeboats and they were driving around in circles. It’s good to see they test them every once in a while.

It was a long slow climb up to the White Pass. The RV could only manage about 30 kph and gas mileage of 120 litres per 100 kilometers. Hardly anybody was going up. All the early morning tour buses were heading back down. We stopped at every turnout to give it a rest.

One of the excursions you can do is get a drive up to the top of the pass and then coast down on a bike, no pedaling necessary. I wonder how often they have to change the brake pads.

Speaking of brakes, while we were stopped at a turnout a downhill bus slowed for some pictures. I could really smell his brake pads burning up. It must be a hard life for those buses going up and down that very steep pass several times a day.

We saw a few trains heading back down.

Here is the valley the trains go into and around before they climb up into the valley on the left out of sight of the highway.

As you can see the weather is pretty good. At a viewpoints I heard one of the tour guides say they have only had about 15 days like this all summer.

When we crossed this suspension bridge the view from high up in the RV over the railing down into the gorge caught Jennie by surprise.

We always stop for waterfalls.

Almost at the top.

We stopped at the top for lunch and had this view out our side window.

Back down into that rocky landscape with all the lakes.

We stopped at a pullout with a few friends.

Jennie is down looking at the pond.

This weird lake was two toned. All that separated the two sections was a sand bar.

We stopped at one pullout where there had to be thousands of inuksuk / rock piles.

Lots more scenery that was just nice to look at.

We stopped to read the info boards at the terminus of the Chilkoot trail, that started in Dyea.

We really took our time today. I am pretty sure we stopped at every viewpoint and turnout. Since we also lost as hour when we crossed back into Canada, we stopped for the night at the turnout where we saw the great reflecting mountain on the way in. There were whitecaps on the lake today so no reflections.