The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

Today would be the hard day – the same number of miles as before, but with an elevation gain of nearly 3,000 feet to Chilkoot Pass. We left Sheep’s Camp and quickly lost the trail after it became covered in snow. We put on our gaiters and snowshoes and had a not-so-bad bush crash until we got above treeline – the base of the large incline up to Chilkoot Pass.

The trail follows a ravine all the way up and over the pass. So although it was somewhat socked in and foggy, we hoped to do alright in terms of navigation, also being prepared with a map and compass. The higher we ascended, the foggier it became, until visibility was very limited indeed. The trail became steeper, and we figured we were at a feature known in the Gold Rush as the Golden Steps – the steepest part of the trail.

We finally arrived at a place where we had air on three sides of us. A pass is a saddle point, where this one should have been upsloping to the east and west and downsloping on the north and south. We seemed to be high up on the east side of the saddle. With cliffs between us and the pass itself. Though it was very hard to tell. The terrain also seemed glaciated, and although there were glaciers marked around the pass, the pass itself was not supposed to be a glacier. Earlier on in the day when there was no visibility, I had judged the steepness of the hill by throwing snowballs at varying distances. If the snowball lands on the snow and is visible, one can make out the grade as far as the snowball was thrown. If the snowball disappears, this indicates a cliff.

We had to make a decision of whether to try to navigate the cliffs in the whiteout, turn back, or make camp there on the pass by making large snow sidewalls to protect ourselves from the wind. We were over half way to Happy Camp in terms of distance, and probably three quarters in terms of time, since it was all a gentle downhill from the pass to Happy Camp. However, we decided to turn back, since we could follow our footprints back. If we waited out the night, our footprints back to Sheep’s Camp would disappear and it would be harder to find our way back.

We made it back to Sheep’s Camp after an 8 hour day, promptly got a fire going, made dinner, and fell asleep. We had enough food to attempt the pass again the next day if the weather were clear. Otherwise we would return to Canyon City, and then to Dyea.

We had another roaring fire this morning. Excellent – no white-gas needed to power our cook stove! We first headed to the Canon City ruins, a scattering of century old remanents of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. We took a suspension bridge to get there.

The trail to Sheep’s Camp was nice. There were occasional patches of ice and snow on the trail, but it was pretty clear. The scenery was nice and we even saw a coyote.

Sheep’s Camp wasn’t quite so developed as the Canyon City camp. There wasn’t enough wood stocked, but there was an axe. I got to work chopping the uncovered wood, that had been sitting outside for the preceding fall, winter, and now spring. It wasn’t rotten, but it was far from perfectly dry. Our fires at Sheep’s Camp lived, but always struggled.

Sheep’s Camp is also right by the river, giving us an easy source of water. We again set up the tent in the cabin to get away from the mosquitos.

Waking up at Upper Dewey Lake, we had breakfast, broke camp and got ready to go. The snow was still rather soft, with the occasional post-hole. At one point I went to kiss Katie. One moment I was standing at face level, the next, I found myself plumetting through the snow as it gave way and I found myself staring at her feet. It was rather humourous.

Katie after falling off path into a tree-well. She bounded up cheerily

We arrived back in Skagway, had lunch at a quiet picnic site, and went to the ranger station for information about the 50km Chilkoot trail. It was still very early season and the ranger told us that it wasn’t done this time of year and we would be the first people to do it for the year if we made it. He told us that the trail wasn’t maintained yet, there would be no low-visibility-flag-poles in the alpine section, and there would be no $50 registration fee nor $50 charge to take the train back to Skagway (since the train wouldn’t begin operating until May 22nd). We decided to give it a go and leave ourselves 6 days, to be on the safe side.

After a shower at the Skagway rec-center, and a while spent individually bagging food for each day, we drove the 10 miles to Dyea and began the trail around 5pm. We made it as far as Canyon City and found a beautiful cabin, with 4 bunk beds, light and dry kindling, a whole box filled with chopped wood, and even fire starter. There was also an outhouse a short distance away, and the river a few seconds from the doorstep. Perfect! We had a fine night, though ended up setting up the tent inside the cabin to get away from the mosquitos. It was too warm to get fully inside our sleeping bags, but to buggy to leave any exposed skin. Dilema resolved!

It was a windy night, but with the fly guyed close to the ground, we were warm. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs along with coffee, we headed for Skagway. It was a beautiful drive with clear skies, clear roads, and surrounded by snow-covered mountains.

Our breakfast view

The road to Skagway

We crossed the border with slightly more hassle than normal. Issue 1 – Since my Canadian passport was being renewed, I crossed as a UK citizen, resident of Vancouver, driving a car registered in New York. I had to pay a $6 international border crossing fee since I was neither Canadian nor American. Issue 2 – We had apples in the car – a restricted fruit. I presented the offending apples to an immigration officer and they, along with me, were cleared for entry. Issue 3 – We had a bottle of Amaretto in the back and the border guard questioned me rather thoroughly about Katie being under the legal drinking age of the US. I assured him that it was mine and that Katie would have no business with any alcoholic beverage while visiting the US.

After lunch in Skagway and a brief tour of the small and deserted town, we decided to hike to Upper Dewey Lake, on the advice of the hardware store man. Leaving around 4pm or so from Skagway, we realized that this was Skagway’s equivalent of the Grouse Grind. We ascended at the same general rate, with views of Skagway every so often. We eventually put on snowshoes, since we were postholing with every step. Even with the snowshoes, I was postholing occasionally with my mum’s rather small MSR snowshoes.

The bottom of the trail to the Dewey Lake Trails

We were happy to arrive at the lake around 7pm and found a locked, private cabin by the lake. There was also a very fancy outhouse with a rotating lock, skylights, and a cedar-finished toilet seat and trim.

The world’s most posh outhouse

We quickly set up camp, had a hot dinner, and went to bed. It turned out I was slightly on the uphill side – giving Katie a start as my sleeping body rolled into her.

We woke up after a chilly night by the lake. I was happy to find that because of the constant breeze and the fly being partially up from the ground, there was no condensation on the fly or the tent. We were thus able to pack the tent up immediately instead of letting it air out in the back of the car. We had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese, seasoned with garam masala on bread. Tea and coffee helped to warm us up.

We continued on to Whitehorse, with more cars on the road as we went. It is now 2pm and we’re accessing the internet from a Starbucks in the city.

After updating the blog we toured around Whitehorse for a bit. There was a big, fancy looking tourist information place but it was closed on Saturdays after 2pm or so. I say better to spend less on the building to be able to afford the labour to actually be able to give tourists information.

We then headed in the direction of Skagway and camped by a lake (Tutshi Lake perhaps?). It was a huge lake and was very windy. We made sure to bundle up, get the tent up and get dinner cooking as quickly as possible. We guyed out the corners and sides of the tent until taught, giving us a bombproof setup.

We had another scenic day of driving today up highway 37 and the Alaska highway. We started the day with a fantastic idea – adding chocolate chips to our oatmeal. It made for a very nice change. Later in the day we saw something that looked like a baby moose, but we later found out was a cariboo.

Sometime after Dease Lake, we realized that we would need gas within the next few hundred km. Unfortunately, all of the gas stations in the tiny towns we passed were closed for the season. We made it up into the Yukon and to the junction with the Alaska highway with the gas gauge down to empty.

Seeing a gas station, we drove to it, but found that it was closed. We tried to leave, following the tracks through the snow of another vehicle. Buy just as we got halfway over the little mound of snow, the car got stuck. We tried to reverse, but the car was being propped up by the centre on snow, so the tires weren’t getting any traction. After 30 minutes or so of digging and with the help of a climbing rope dog leash and a pull from some friendly Utah’ers, we were out.We made it the 25km to Watson Lake to a gas station to fill up. We were also pleasantly surprised to find some showers.

We made camp halfway to Whitehorse at a picnic site called Swan Lake. There was a snowbank in the way between us and our desired tent spot by the lake, so we got to work shovelling, and worked up a hearty appetite in the process. It was a beautiful tent site, with a stream (though frozen the next morning), and a brilliant view over the lake and the mountains. Dinner was sprouted green lentils with tomato sauce and a glass of wine.

We had our latest night yet last night as it took a while to go through all our photos and update the blog. We finally pulled over at around 11:30pm and had our first night sleeping in the car. The seats recline to near horizontal and we have about six pillows or so, which made the car somewhat bedlike. Even with the late night, we were both awake by 6:30am with the sun.

We stopped at a rest area a few minutes away and Katie had the pleasure of throwing out her old boots. They had been soaking through every day at Bowron Lakes, so she swore to get new boots at the next big city. Finding an Atmosphere in Prince George, she got some new waterproof hiking boots. We also had coffee for the first time with the Bialetti stovetop espresso maker, which was a nice luxury.

We had lunch just before Smithers, at a rather scenic viewpoint. It’s amazing how it can be warm in the sun in the day when it gets so cold at night. We had soup and sandwiches. We then stopped at the Safeway in Smithers to get some new coffee (the coffee we had in the morning was remanents from last year’s Mexico trip)

Just past Smithers was the turnoff north to highway 37. It was a very nice change. There were hardly any cars nor cities for the whole ~500km up to Dease Lake. We drove up and down mountain passes, past frozen lake after frozen lake, and the road was very well maintained and clear of potholes and snow. Katie did the navigating. We stopped at a turnoff near Spatsizi Provincial Park and made camp on a forest road to a trailhead.

We decided to head as quickly as possible to the car and not spend long getting ready in the morning. Though we still had time for breakfast (soup, as we had finished all the oatmeal) and time to get the fire going. We wanted enough time to restock on food in Prince George and get Katie new hiking boots, as hers had been soaking through every day. It hadn’t been very nice for her, having soaking wet boots every day. I also wanted time to go through and edit all the photos and upload them to the internet.

We ran our errands in Prince George and celebrated Easter with a Kinder Egg each. Katie got a horned-pig and I got a racecar. It’s now 9:30pm and we’re headed back on the road.

We woke up to a gentle patter of snow on the cabin roof. The snow subsided as we ate breakfast, and the weather began to clear.

It was a fairly short day heading back to the Kibbie Lake cabin. We could have made it back to the car, but decided that it would be nice to have one last cabin day.

Today was Katie’s turn for a shower, and she got rather chilly. I heated up the cabin, and after warming up in her sleeping bag and a bowl of hot quinoa, she was feeling better.

It was a pleasant last night in the cabins. With enough wood for the stove, the cabin was warm and we had a candle-lit dinner (despite the fact that it was 7pm and there was still plenty of daylight coming in through the single window)

With another 6am wake-up, we had a roaring fire going to warm up the cabin. It’s convenient with a routine of going to bed early and waking up early, since it’s much nicer snowshoeing on the more solid, frozen ground early in the day than the mushy ice/snow later in the day. Outside temperatures would swing from below freezing at night to 20 degrees on the lakes in the day (we learned this from a thermometer at the ranger station). We breakfasted in style with 4 eggs we had brought in a hard case. Scrambled with garam masala they were very nice, not that oatmeal with brown sugar and nuts is getting boring

The weather also turned last night, with the first precipitation we had seen since being on the lakes. It was beautiful blue sunny skies until now, but today is snowy, with low-lying fog hiding the mountains from view. It was actually a nice change from the nice whether, since the scenery looks very different this way. We also didn’t need to worry about overheating or sunburn!

Arriving back at the Indianpoint Lake cabin, I decided that it was time for a shower. I heated some water over the wood-burning stove and had another rather cold shower just outside the cabin. I left my boots and gaiters on since it was muddy outside.