Le Voyage --On Dry Ground

Pathway to gold

(Just a note before we begin: I added a short clip with the sounds I recorded that the pieces of ice that broke off the glacier make to the previous post. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work in Firefox or my mobile devices, but it will play in a Chrome browser on a desktop. Or you could try downloading it. I'm trying to figure out the format that will play in everything and will replace it when I can. Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.)

We wake up in Skagway, and the day promises to be a great one. The sun's shining already, and by the time we're ready to head for town, the day is gorgeous. None of the early morning fog or mist, no suggestion of rain.

Town is a short walk from the ship, so we grab cameras and load our backpacks with precautionary gear -- it might not look like bad weather, but hey, what's to stop the day from turning on us? Better to be prepared.

On our way in, we spot a house built high on the side of a mountain. Could be that owner has the best view in town. We walk a couple of blocks over from the road that shuttles you into the shopping district to take pics of the house without interference from telephone wires. The street we're standing on is Main Street, and it looks like any other small town Main Street you can imagine.

Not a bad view from up there. To the left is the inlet, in front
would be the town with mountains in the background, and
to the right would be more mountains.

Move over two blocks, and you're on Broadway, the main tourist artery for the town. We stop in at a bunch of the shops, and at the National Parks souvenir place the store clerk tells us it had rained the past two days, suggesting it's because of our arrival. I happily take credit on behalf of our ship. Never mind the other two boats in port. And the weather will hold all day. Clouds and fog move in a bit as the sun goes down, but the temps are nice, and you could hardly ask for a better day.

Speaking of fjords. (What fjords you say? Did you miss something? No, I haven't mentioned them before.) I did not realize that fjord was a specific geographical designation, not a just Scandinavian local term. A fjord is a long, narrow, deep inlet formed from a submerged valley that was formed by a glacier. The one Skagway lies at the end of is the longest in North America.

Skagway reminds me of Bar Harbor, Maine, but with snow on the mountains. Scenic barely begins to describe it; it's "ditto." (Another spectacular view, that is.) Mountains to the left, right and front, the inlet behind you, the enormous cruise ships dwarfed by their surroundings.

Our big event for the day is a train ride to the White Pass summit. I'd read mixed reviews about this on Trip Advisor. The chief complaint seemed to be that you don't make stops, so taking pictures is more difficult. This true, but the experience of the ride -- the bumps and jolts, the clacking of the wheels, the swaying of the restored, old-time carriages -- these make the ride almost as much as the scenery, and the scenery is ... well, you know.

Looking back toward town. Cruise ships are docked down
there. Look closely at the larger version of this photo,
and you might almost see them.

The White Pass railway was built during the Klondike gold rush days and is considered to be an engineering marvel. Along the way you can see a couple of other routes -- a now dilapidated roadway and an extremely narrow trail -- that adventurers took to reach the Yukon. We're traveling on a clear, sunny, fall-like day, and I try to imagine what it would have been like during worse weather. I shudder to think of the difficulties that would be encountered by anyone trying to use those routes during foul weather.

A guide on board broadcasts tidbits about what we're seeing along the route, and early on she say passengers can stand outside the cars on the their platforms to take pictures. Unfortunately, the guide's spiel isn't broadcast on the outside. Still, I take advantage of the opportunity, coming in when I grow cold and heading back out when our accompanying guide book or the narrator indicates a special sight is about to appear. At one point I switch to video and shoot 3.5 minutes of the ride. Come back in a week or so, and I'll have added a link to the video. The whole experience thrills me, though when I first stepped onto the platform I nearly fell while adjusting to the car's motion.

At the pass summit, the train's engineer detaches the locomotive and moves it to the other end of the train by means of a cleverly constructed siding. We'll also use the siding to allow another train to pass us -- the line run several trains and can also take tourists all the way to the Yukon territory. Technically we're in Canada, and we've been warned not to get off the train. Don't see any Mounties waiting to apprehend scofflaws, though.

Our train enters a tunnel. I'm standing outside the car. You
can barely see someone else standing outside to the
left of the picture.

For the trip back, passengers flip the seat backs of the benches they've been sitting on and switch sides so they can see the stuff they missed on the way up. I decide to hang out inside with Sharon on the way back. That way I can steal a kiss when we pass through the tunnel, one of the sights along the way. Man, it's dark in there.

Once we arrive in town, we hop off at the depot and go exploring the town again. They have a quilt shop, and we spend some time there, then wander about taking photos and enjoying the wonderful weather until it's time to return to the ship.

Our evening is unremarkable, but we do spend some time on our balcony watching the world go by as the ship heads for its next destination.