On the road again

12 July 2010
Monday

Just before we left today we went back to the docks to get a better impression of Skagway only to find that there were THREE giant cruise ships waiting to disgorge their passengers so we made another decision to leave this place.

We headed north on the South Klondike Highway through an extremely narrow gorge with the highway on one side, the railroad on the other and a wild-looking river roaring in the middle. We climbed White Pass into thicker and thicker fog. We had no idea what we were missing because we could barely see in front of us let alone into the distance.

Again we entered Canada and then lost an hour. The sky cleared over the area east of Summit Lake showing us a uniquely peculiar "moonscape" with stunted trees, small water holes and lots of rocky terrain. Next part of the adventurous road was called "the Tormented Valley." Near Carcross in the Yukon Territories we found the world's smallest desert.

In the small community of Taglish we met a wonderfully gregarious woman from Germany who had coffee. We talked about different things to see and do and left with some recommendations. We connected with the Alaskan Highway again and headed east until we could exit onto the Cassiar Highway to continue our way south. We did remember to stop at the Tlingit Cultural Center near Teslin to turn in our Yukon passports for a chance at winning 2 ounces of gold.  At today's prices that could extend this adventure for a quite a few more weeks.

We slipped back into British Columbia around 12 noon and then back into the Yukon and finally back into BC one more time. Around 2:45 we had our daily rain. Around 4:30 we found a campsite at a provincial park [Boya Lake] run by a First Nation family. We had a great site next to the water and could hear the loons.

Animal count:
*Porcupine 1
*Beaver 1
*Black Bear 1

Animal counting is getting grim.