Day 13– Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Start: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada
End: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada
Trip Miles Today: 224
Total Trip Miles: 4581
For the first time in over a week I didn’t go anywhere today. Well, it’s not exactly that I didn’t go anywhere. Maybe we’ll just think of it as a “local” ride. What I did was that I got up nice and early and rode the 100 miles to Skagway, Alaska, then returned later in the afternoon to Whitehorse. I made that trip for a couple of reasons. First, the ride along the South Klondike Highway is as scenery packed as just about anywhere else I’ve been on the trip. High alpine peaks, mountain lakes and rivers, waterfalls, the Klondike has it all. Secondly, Skagway is a very cool place to spend a day (or part of a day.) Skagway was an important port of entry during the Alaska Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century. Steamships came here from all the Pacific ports – Seattle, San Francisco, et al. Here the steamers discharged their gold stampeders, some 30,000 in the 1898 season, and they began their overland (and uphill!) trek to the headwaters of the Yukon River some 40 miles distant through the White Pass. Skagway today is basically a tourist destination that plies its Gold Rush heritage to good effect. As a deepwater port at the end of the Lynn Canal, Skagway is served by virtually all of the major cruise lines that offer Alaska tours. The ships come in as day stops. There were 4 of them docked in Skagway today. There is virtually no overnighting of tourist crowds here. The town comes alive with tourists about 8:00 am as the cruise patrons surge down the gangways and by about 8:00 in the evening it’s all back to a sleepy little town again as the cruise boats depart for their next destination North or South. Shopping, exploring the town’s history (an excellent visitor center), hiking, rafting, sightseeing, dining are all available. The third reason I cam here today is that good friends Don and Sandy Verdiani were on one of the cruise boats berthed in Skagway today. I went there to surprise them and to have breakfast before they headed out on their scheduled activities. Don and Sandy are the friends who will be joining my wife and I in Anchorage on Friday for our week touring as a foursome.
Riding over to Skagway also meant that I reentered the US and, in particular, Alaska for a few hours. So I guess I can now say I rode to Alaska. Still, there are some 700 miles to go till I get to my real destination which is Anchorage and the surrounding area. No claims of “mission accomplished” quite yet.
As you can tell from the pics, the weather was perfect – except for the part where it was really cold riding out there in the early morning hours. Like REALLY COLD! Like 28 degrees (F) in places. By the time I returned after noon it had warmed up mightily and it even got over 80 (F) this afternoon, so my discomfort was short lived.
I saw two more bears today. I saw one on the way over to Skagway and the other on the way back. Both Blacks, but they seemed bigger that the ones I saw the other day. Perhaps that’s just because I was closer to these guys. Each one was right adjacent to the side of the road! No pics, though. They ran away too quickly. I suppose that’s actually a good thing.
Another visit I made today was to the Yukon Transportation Museum located adjacent to the Whitehorse Airport. The museum is a nicely done treatment of the various modes of transportation that have mobilized the Yukon Territory in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Understandably one focus is on the building of the Alaska Highway in 1942 as a war measure that ultimately opened the area to further commercialization and tourism. The second focus is the role of aviation in supporting the huge territory and it's widely dispersed population. Fascinating stories of brave men (and women) flying sometimes "questionable" craft in appalling weather conditions. As a pilot this stuff has great appeal to me. A very nice museum that you can get through in an hour or so.
I’ve just checked the weather and it looks like the good stuff is going to hold for the next two days. That’s good. I’ve got about 700 miles to go and I am going to try to split it up as 400 miles tomorrow and 300 on Thursday. If that works out I should be in Tok, AK tomorrow night. Stay tuned to see if it happens just as planned.
Thanks for being on the ride with me!
More pictures from today and from the entire ride to date can be seen at http://jackb1.smugmug.com/
The 2009 Ride to Alaska for The Austin Hatcher Foundation is supported by
RevZilla Motorsports at RevZilla.com and by Hermy's Cycles in Port Clinton, PA
2 comments:
That's a really nice group of pictures on smugmug. Although I lived in Fairbanks for a year and a half, I think I'm learning more about Alaska from your write than I ever did when I was there.
Don't worry Paul. I plan to take kind of a sabbatical while I do the tourist thing with wife and friends for a week or so. Don't plan to post much during that time but don't count me out - there will probably be something. Then the return trip will commence on or about Tuesday June 16. I intend to post regularly, just like the northbound trip. The route, however, will probably be significantly different!!
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