Westmark Inn Skagway

... of Fireweed its brilliant magenta now dusty and cottony and still beautiful covering entire hillsides. There's mineral-green water splashing over rocky riverbeds and thundering waterfalls and very Very Scary Places Where You Hope the Train Does Not Derail and Plunge into a Crevasse.
More than one train travels the route and looking out the window we can see the train ahead Waaaay up on the mountainside and wonder how the ...

... hugging the harbor. The original settlement was built on stilts over the river, which provided transportation and possibly sanitation at the same time. The old town is now a collection of artsy/tourist shops, connected by the hanging walkways, and the setting is picturesque. Forests and mountains rise up behind it. There is a 14-mile trek from the back of town through the forest to the other side of the mountain, with spectacular views after mile 7. Carol tried a bit of ...

... in record time to ferry hopeful prospects up, and for a while Skagway had more than 30,000 residents. That died very quickly once the gold rush ended, and the city was all but deserted until Pearl Harbor, after which the U.S. Army arrived overnight – unannounced – seized control of the railroad (which required extensive repairs) and used Skagway as their staging point to get supplies up to support the building ...

Friday, August 28, 2009 - Skagway, Alaska - Day 4 of 4

This morning's early rising reminded me of my childhood days when dad would call up the stairs, "All hands on deck!" Our carpool was scheduled to leave at 7:15 for our 8:00 a.m. cruise on the Skagway-Juneau Fjord Express Catamaran.

It was a rainy morning, and it seemed as though our "good weather luck" had run its course. Although we have encountered our share of rain on ...

... from the 1920's of the early opening of the park before it was declared a "national monument" and the work of the people who made it possible. The building of the road was its own story, and the old-fashioned equipment and outfits of the early workers a trip back in time. July 24 - 30 Standing in line at 7:30am at the McKinley Visitors Center to board our bus, we represented several foreign countries - even Uruguay - and every region, shade and hue of the US. The bus itself was a ...

... of them!

The next day as we were getting ready to leave camp, we spied a bear in the campground! It was far enough away that we weren't concerned and wasn't interested in us at all, nosing around in the bushes, but we couldn't believe we'd seen another one where we were staying.

Despite the iffy weather we hired a double kayak for half a day and took ourselves on a paddle on Auke Bay, around Indian and Coghlin Islands. We landed on Coghlin Island and had a little bite ...

Ahhh. It's easy to see why this place is called Happy Camp. We'll actually be hiking a mile farther today than yesterday, but with considerably less steep grades, descending from high alpine to boreal forest, passing several lakes in the process. But aside from the good news to come, this is a very welcome place. Like the other camps, we have good sturdy platforms to set the tents on, the privacy of outhouses, a convenient ...