Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Day 6 - Nugget City to Skagway

Up in the Yukon, the sun is pretty much up 23 hours a day now. Below is a picture taken at 4:30am with no flash.




It was an early rise at 4:30am for a 6am departure up Yukon 1 with a final destination of Skagway, Alaska. It seems strange to say "We are riding down to Alaska", but that's truly what we were doing.


Much of the day was spent slogging it out on long paved sections with big sweepers and BIG scenery. There were a few gravel sections, but nothing we couldn't handle. We had one confirmed moose sighting, one eagle sighting and an unconfirmed wolf or cyote sighting. Leaving highway 1, we took CA 8 from Jake's Crossing to Caircross (a fabulous road). We then rode CA 2 back into BC and eventually Alaska. The temperatures were much more moderate today and became quite chilly coming over the pass.

Arriving at the "Welcome to Alaska" sign, there were a number of foreign tourists from the cruise ships, and they were immediately enamored with Tim's Gold Wing. They immediately forgot about the fact that they were in Alaska and it was all about getting their pictures taken with the Wing. Tim graciously obliged.





We had several such encounters as we made our way down the mountain and finally crossed back into Alaska once again. Here's a picture of a cool bridge just before border check station.



In Skagway, we first went to the ferry terminal and bought our passage for the Tuesday 7am sailing, We noted there were 3 cruise ships in port today (9,000) tourists in a town of probably less than a couple thousand people. We saw a schedule and 5 ships are due tomorrow which will probably be 15,000 people. Then we found rooms at the Sargeant Preston motel (very friendly), and walked around Skagway, took lots of pictures including some of a couple of Welsh ladies who were thrilled to have their pictures taken. We also watched the departure of the 4:30 train that goes up the grade to the mine area ($108) and we watched the arrival of the Alaska State Ferry Columbia.

Eventually we ended up at the Starfire restaurant for some good Thai food for the Tim's, a GIANT burrito for Tom, and a fish platter for Neil. Neil reported that Rich and Dave from Minnesota (Tim's internet buddies from Sidestandup.com) made it to Skagway and were planning to take the ferry as well. Neil and Tom then went out to find some grizzly bears that had been reported, while the Tim's decided to head back to the motel for an early bedtime.

Tomorrow we take the ferry to Haines and then plan to ride north on Yukon 3 and east to Whitehorse and someplace east before Watson Lake.

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