Day 4-Skagway

At this point I have no idea what day of the week it is or even what day of the cruise it is.  I’m only able to type the heading of “Day 4” because I remember being shocked earlier this evening when I saw our daily pamphlet of events for tomorrow arrive and it said “Day 5”!!  So that means today was day four. 

We woke up leisurely this morning because it is not something we get to do often.  We arrived in port at about 5:00AM (or 5:00AM in the morning as our cruise director would announce over the loudspeaker) and were going to be docked here until 8:00 PM.  After a nice low-carb breakfast of eggs and sausage (but don’t try the sausage in scrambled eggs mess…seems like a convenient short cut but is really some kind of fake sausage that also taints the flavor of the eggs so the whole mess tastes like cardboard and you have to go all the way back to the buffet and replace it with regular eggs and sausage on the side just like you had yesterday).  ANYWAY, that rant was so long I don’t even remember where I was in my thought and I’ll have to start over!  After a nice, low-carb breakfast, we checked out the weather (drizzly and chilly) and got dressed in pretty much the same thing we wore yesterday and headed off the boat.  I had researched ahead about this area and unfortunately only remembered this morning that I had decided it was a good idea to book something through the cruise ship for this stop as the prices were comparable and it didn’t seem like there would be as many independent companies.  Whoops!  Luckily there was an independent company right as we got off the boat and we were able to book a bus tour for later in the day.  The highlight of this stop is supposed to be the White Pass railroad and you are supposed to take an old-fashioned train along the trail.  However, old-fashioned trains are VERY expensive and they don’t stop for pictures so the bus that traveled parallel to the train and went to the same place seemed like a much better option! 

The bus didn’t leave until 1:15 so we had a few hours to kill.  We started off by walking through town, which of course turned into shopping for stuff…  The main thing we wanted was a pair of new binoculars that would be more powerful and be better to spot the mountain goats.  After scouring a souvenir shop and finding none, we were sent to the local hardware store where we got some “magic” binoculars that auto focus and zoom very, very far.  We were pretty excited about this purchase and couldn’t wait to go spot some goats!  Next, we had lunch at a local pub (fish and chips!) and then wandered back to the bus.  Just as we arrived, the rain started to fall.  We felt like that was good timing since we knew we’d be inside the bus for the next couple of hours!

The view of our port, looking back at the ship.

The view of the town heading off the ship.

The famous White Pass railroad.

The town.

Looking down the other side of main street, nice view!

Lunch!

The guide was fantastic.  He had a very deep knowledge of the area and gave us the history of the White Pass trail, which we were traveling.  The train was traveling parallel to us on the White Pass railroad trail, the original one that was built during the gold rush to make the journey easier for the stampeders.  The road we were riding on was the original pass (turned into a regular highway/road of course!) that the men had taken with their horses to get them into Daweson.  The White Pass was supposed to be the easier of the two options, the other being the very steep Chilkoot Trail from a neighboring town that no longer exists called Dyea, but even though it wasn’t as steep, it was just as rugged and quite a bit longer.  We rode up into the mountains hearing the details of the story and seeing the beautiful (although cloudy and drizzly) vistas on both sides of the bus.  He stopped a few times for pictures and we got to experience the horrendous mosquitos while we tried to take our pictures.  We turned around shortly after crossing into Canada.  We stopped at the border on the way back down the mountain (I was relieved, I couldn’t believe that I might not have photographic evidence of my first time in Canada!) and a nice couple from North Carolina (who have a brother who is a policeman in Charlotte…I told them I hoped my brother had never met him!) took our picture in front of the Alaska state sign. 

A cascade down the side of the cliff.

The railroad, traveling parallel to us.

The misty view. 

Some lakes we passed.

The view at the highest point we visited. 

The view from the top...and our heads.

Rich doesn't seem to want to get too close to Canada!

A view in the gorge by the side of the road.

A waterfall we passed, called Bridal Vail. 

Unfortunately, we returned without seeing any mountain goats with our new binoculars and into a rain storm.  We ended up in the office of the national park service and watched a free film on the gold rush, which pretty much reiterated what the guide had said but without as much personality.  However, the film had lots of photographs and it was nice to put some visual images with the story. 

We decided to head back to the ship at that point since it was raining and the only other thing we could really do was shop some more.  We both agreed that the only thing we regretted about our two days in Alaska was not finding one of the wildlife tours and taking it.  We were really hoping to see some big whale activity, some goats and some bears and I think we both envisioned just riding around on our cruise ship and seeing that.  So, if anyone is now dying to take a cruise to Alaska, let’s all start saving up and we’ll remember that for next time!