Skagway, AK to Watson Lake, YK – Stunning scenery, then the Alaska Highway.

Riding up and away from Skagway. It was beautiful!

It was five and a half days of riding between Skagway and Watson Lake. We loved the first two days of riding! Skagway is right at sea level, so the first order of business was climbing straight up and over the 3,292′ pass. The climb was only 12 miles long! Luckily for us, it was a breeze – literally. A very strong tailwind pushed us up and over the pass in less than three hours. I will speak a bit about the climb and the summit, since they were truly the highlights of this section.

The railroad winds through Skagway and over White Pass.

As we climbed, we stopped often to enjoy the stunning scenery. The White Pass and Yukon Route railroad winds along across the river from the highway, and we enjoyed stopping to watch locomotives pulling passengers up the mountains. I think we saw three trains, each pulling a dozen cars of tourists! That is hundreds of people. WOW! Once I (Daisy) stopped my bicycle too quickly and Jason ran right into it and fell down. Yikes – he skinned his knee but was otherwise unharmed. I think I was a lot more shook up than he was.

The train chugging up the pass.

Also while climbing we paused at an overlook… and were immediately overrun with tourists unloading from two buses. This turned out to be a blessing though, as we happened to meet a woman from State College. Small world.

We made it!

We reached the summit, took the obligatory photo, and descended a small bit into a magical land of moonscape. That sounds dramatic, but the scenery was so different from the lushness of the coast. I will let the pictures speak:

Bicycles. Moonscape.

A lake just past the summit. It was cold here!

The customs guy was friendly as we re-entered Canada, and we settled down for the night at a boat launch on a lovely lake. I am not sure if you (reader) know this, but I rode from Skagway to Montana by myself four years ago. This was before I met Jason. This Skagway to Watson Lake section is something I already rode, then, so it was really fun to camp exactly where I camped before. It was much much better with Jason with me this time around!

The following day we visited the historic town of Carcross. We ate delicious date bars, drank extra helpings of the free coffee, and began a caffeinated ride out of town. We went a bit out of our way to see the Carcross Desert. It is not a real desert, but actually a small area of sandy dunes left behind by an ancient glacial lake. How neat!

The worlds smallest not-quite-a-desert.

We went past the tiny town of Tagish, ate dinner at a beautiful spot on Tagish Lake, and rode toward the Alaska Highway.

Wow, the Alaska highway. For so many, this road encapsulates adventure, wilderness, etc. etc. To us, it is a parade of RV’s, campers, and semi-trucks. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery is very pleasant, but it’s not breathtaking like the Glenn Highway, the Haines Highway, or the road from Skagway. We spent a long few days ticking off the miles, watching the trees pass. We saw two bull moose, two black bears, and had a nesting pair of swallows try to scare us away from their nest.

Making dinner at a rest area before finding a ‘wild camp’ spot down the road.

The outhouse at our wild camp… we were not interested in using it!

The best interlude on the road was a chance meeting with another cyclist, Paul, at the grocery store in Teslin. He invited us to camp in his yard, and we spent a wonderful evening chatting with him. What a treat to have a place to camp, a shower to get clean, and to make a new friend.

On the fifth day out of Skagway we finally made it to Watson Lake!, home of the infamous signpost forest. More importantly, we met my parents!!

Reunited in the signpost forest! We even painted a sign the next day. Photo to be included in the next post!

My parents drove up here from Bellingham, WA and will be our companions for the next two weeks while we head south along the isolated Cassiar Highway. Yes, they will carry our heavy things for us during the day, and meet us in camp each night for dinner and fun. This is so exciting for us, and we can’t wait to finally start heading south in earnest.

Internet sites are few and far between in this area, so it may be a while before we can update. Be patient our friends!

Three rest days – Haines, Juneau, and Skagway.

The tidepools outside of Haines, AK

A view of Haines and the magnificent backdrop of mountains

We have been tourists for a few days in this trio of small towns, eating from local bakeries, drinking locally made coffee and beer, and taking a spectacular boat trip along the Inside Passage. We stayed three nights with a few friends in Haines (thanks everyone!), and met a number of friendly folks.

A display at the Hammer museum in Haines

Haines is nestled at the base of big mountains at the tidewaters of the Chilkat River, way up the deep water fjord of Lynn Canal. We took a day trip to Chilkoot Lake (14 miles riding each way!) to see where the salmon run and the tourists play. While we stopped to read some information about the local bears a woman approached us and asked if we wanted some fish her husband had just caught and cleaned. Well, yes, of course! She gave us two bags of fresh, plump Dolly Varden, which we later baked to perfection with some cream cheese and dill. What a special treat for us!

The next day we took the fast boat to Juneau. This special tour was a gift from my parents for our wedding, and it included breakfast on the fast boat as we watched wildlife en route to Juneau, Alaska. We saw a giant colony of Stellar sea lions, harbor seals, humpback whales, and more bald eagles than we could count. It was raining for us, but the sealife didn’t mind a bit!

Stellar sea lions swimming past our boat

Look close! You’ll see humpback whale tails.

We spent a few hours in Juneau, which was fun because we got to go to the capitol building. Apparently, it was re-purposed when Alaska became a state and has been voted the least beautiful capitol building of all 50 states! We enjoyed our time in Juneau, but a few hours was enough to see the downtown sights.

Downtown Juneau, they get four cruise ships docked here a day!

The tour included a quick trip to the Mendenhall glacier too, and we took the time to hike up as near as they allowed.

The falls next to the glacier. Note raincoat… it was rainy!

The Mendenhall Glacier – a bit of a poster-glacier for climate change.

We fast-boated right back to Haines that evening, happy tourists!

A mostly abandoned and supposedly haunted lighthouse.

Taking the fast ferry from Haines to Skagway.

Finally, our last day of tourism was in Skagway, AK. This was another main stop on the gold trail of the Klondike Gold Rush. We enjoyed a ranger-led talk through downtown, where we learned about the colorful history of the con men, business men, and miners that passed through more than a hundred years ago. That night we stayed with a wonderful Warmshowers host who had ridden some of our proposed route in Mexico, and was happy to share advice on the road to come.

The Arctic Brotherhood headquarters – most photographed building in Alaska!

Finally, true Alaskan beer!

We decided to treat ourselves and get burgers and a beer sampler at the local brewery. It may have cost a full day’s budget, but it was a delicious meal.

The next day we relaxed in the morning, caffeinating sufficiently for the afternoon of riding, and then headed out for our next big stretch of road to Watson Lake. You will have to wait until tomorrow for our account of that stretch though! Thanks for reading!

Question Time – June 8

Q: How do you make sure you are going the right way and prevent from being lost? Especially if you side track to look for campsites and whatnot. Do you use an old fashioned atlas and follow a route that you mapped out beforehand? Do you look up campsites on the map or do you just find them based on signs you see on the road?

A: Luckily, up here in the far north, there is only ever one road to go down, so getting lost isn’t a problem! What we’ve been using to help guide us is The Milepost, which is an Alaska/Canada travel planner. They give mile-by-mile highlights on all the amenities and turnouts, etc., including campgrounds. Further south, in the US, we’ll use Adventure Cycling Association maps, which have turn-by-turn directions and amenities information. Further south still, we’ll probably just right down directions on paper and ask locals. I’ve read that some of the maps in South America just aren’t accurate and cannot always be trusted. At the beginning of the day we like to have an approximate destination in mind. Also, we just ask folks along the way. They are usually happy to help us, and sometimes even offer us a place to stay!

Silly display on side of road to Haines

Q: How do you keep from scratching at your mosquito bites all the time? Seriously, itchy itchy! You must have a strategy. Inquiring minds want to know!

A: Daisy just scratches! Seriously! I try not to for 10 minutes, which is usually enough time for the main itchiness to subside. Mostly, though, trying not to get bitten in the first place is best. We’ve had good luck so far – since the weather has been cool at night most places the mosquitos haven’t been that bad. At night sometimes we wear ridiculous bug hats.

The green shack near Haines Road summit.

Q: How far do you ride each day?

A: After asking where we are riding to and from, the next question people always ask is this one. The answer is that we aim for 60 miles on a riding day. We’ve gone as much as 79 and as few as 40 miles over the course of a full day. On previous trips we have been able to do more miles daily, but our current set-up makes more than 60 or 70 pretty difficult. Usually, we average about 10 miles an hour and ride 6 or 7 hours.

Q: Aren’t you going the wrong way?

A: Well, yes, and no. Up here in the far North we get asked this a lot, because we have spent time riding East, West, South, and North instead of just heading straight south. We just have a lot to see! There is plenty of time for dawdling and seeing some extra sights while we are here, and the wiggles in route have been well worth it.

Whitehorse to Haines – A study in beautiful scenery

There was so much adventure and fun (i.e. struggle!) during this 4-day stretch!

The storms threaten!

Whitehorse to Haines is about 250 miles, with one small town (no grocery store) and one stunning mountain pass. We left Whitehorse later in the day after being thoroughly spoiled by our friend Alice. In fact, we were so well fed that we didn’t even bother making dinner that first night, opting instead to eat left-over pancakes from the breakfast she had made us!

Dirt turned to mud…

We camped a mere 20 miles from Whitehorse, just a small bit off the road on a small patch of hard-packed dirt next to an abandoned truck trailer. It was a great, hidden spot… but then the rain came. That hard-packed dirt became cement-like mud and after packing up in the morning our shoes were piled high with the stuff. It was like walking on platform boots!

The riding is good.

The storm threatens!

The rain was to come and go for the next three days en route to Haines, but somehow it wasn’t too bad for us. We put our coats and pants on and off, on and off as the showers moved over us. One day, we put them on 7 times! Our second day out of Whitehorse we rolled into a campground just as a big storm reached us. We were so lucky that there was a 24-hour restaurant attached to the campground, where we got the $5 pie special and found a sheltered spot to cook. They offered us free showers, but since we had spent all day in ‘showers’, we didn’t even want them.

Our big accomplishment so far: 1000 miles since Anchorage!! We were about 10 miles from Haines Junction, and we stopped to celebrate.

1000 miles!

We bought day-old cheese stick bread in Haines Junction, and headed out on Haines Highway. The rain continued to come and go, but it didn’t matter to us because the scenery was still stunning. Our longest day (79 miles) yet ended at Million Dollar Falls campground – we had ridden an extra 20 miles for the promise of a picnic shelter. We were not disappointed, the shelter was excellent and we ignored the ‘no tents’ sign and slept out of the continuing rain.

Hot dogs… bike-touring in the Yukon style.

Now, finally, here is the amazing story of the post:

After we made breakfast at Million Dollar CG, we went to retrieve our ‘smelly things’, which we had stored in the back of the bear-proof garbage bags right next to the shelter… and they were GONE. It seems that the park employee had changed the trash bags, and assumed our little bag was trash. We were at first numb, then we started to list all the things that we would need to get anew – Jason’s hand medicines, our spare prescription glasses (!!), our toothbrushes, creams, floss, etc. It was awful. Daisy had a meltdown when she thought the leatherman was lost too, but then we found it in a bear canister. So, finally, we got our stuff packed and limped out of the campground.

At the entrance to the highway we flagged down a Yukon Government Road Maintenance truck, hoping he would have a radio to call the park guy on. No luck, but he said that he knew the guy and a few of his hangout spots, and would check for us. Then if he did find the bag, he would bring it to the ‘Green Shack’ the next day. He also warned us that he believed it was a lost cause…

We continued on, trying to find some silver linings like: ‘Well, the bags are a lot lighter now!’, ‘I guess we didn’t really need that anti-itch cream.’, and ‘At least everything smelly fits in the bear canisters now!’. It took a long time to get cheered up, especially as we climbed higher up and toward the pass with the rains continuing to come and go. On the bright side – the scenery was stunning!

More scenery.

As we neared the summit, we saw the ‘Green Shack’ that we have heard so much about. It looked like nothing special from the outside, but on the inside we would find it to be a warm, cozy oasis. We turned off the road to leave a note for the road worker, and just as we did we saw his truck turn in behind us. Could it be true?! His passenger hopped out of the truck holding our bag full of items! He had found it, and driven all the way up to nearly the summit to get it to us! We were in so much shock, awe, and happiness that we didn’t even get the whole story from him before he got back in the truck and drove off the way he came.

The miracle workers in the Yukon truck.

The rest of the trip into Haines was actually great. The sun came out, the border was no problem, and the scenery continued to be stunning. As we neared town we met some rafting guys who live with our host in town (Thanks Andrew!). Haines is a great, great town, we have met and chatted with many folks and are happy to spend a few days here seeing the sights. Next stops – Juneau, Skagway, and then back to the Yukon!

Here are some more pictures of our descent into Haines. It was so lovely. I highly recommend this road to everyone!