Day 14 – First Day of the Chilkoot Trail
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!
| Published on May 2nd, 2011 | | Posted by admin |