Skagway, Alaska was our destination, mainly for the train ride of the
White Pass-Yukon Route that we had heard wonderful things about. We’d booked in before our arrival and were
ready for this amazing train ride.
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| Rainy morning in Skagway, AK |
The one thing we did not want to see was a rainy overcast day. Our travels would take us through a high
elevation and we’d hoped to see all the sights.
Mother Nature may have had other plans as we travel through the Coast
Mountains.
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| Tunnel Mountain at Glacier Gorge |
We were booked into the morning ride and we will be taking that no
matter what the weather does. There are
other choices for trips through the White Pass but we chose to take the return
trip from Skagway to White Pass Summit, which reaches an elevation of 2815’.
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| Scenic fog |
Our 40 mile trip of just over 3 hours has a narration but we were happy
to be able to buy a DVD of the same trip, one which would not be shrouded in
fog as we were on our train ride.
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| Trestle |
The fog was so thick that we could not see much of this trestle, but we
were able to see it on the return. The railcars
have a small ‘porch’ like area between them so I did spend some time out there
to take photos. So small that we would
take turns for photo opps, not room for more than two people out there.
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| Conductor waits for our arrival |
We have now reached the summit and are slowing down to make the return
trip. There is no turnabout for the
train. Once the train stops, we are
instructed to get out of our seats and tip them so the back is now the new seat,
which makes them face the other way.
Genius! And we change sides of
the aisle so we can see the other side of the valley.
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| Summit Lake at White Pass summit |
We sit while the train returning from the other route passes by
us. This train has done the Bennett
Scenic Journey, which covers from Skagway to Carcross, YT along the same route
taken in 1898 by the Klondike stampeders.
This also includes a visit to the Bennett Station, which is only
accessible by train.
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| View of trestle |
Our travel back to Skagway gave us some better views with some of the
clouds lifting. This trestle was part of
the project that took tens of thousands of men and over 450 ton of explosives
to build in very severe conditions.
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| Narrow and cliffside |
The train climbs almost 915 metres (3,000’) in 20 miles on this route
and we pass through two tunnels. There
are turns of 16 degrees and steep drops alongside the narrow rails. In 1901 they could claim that their steel
cantilever bridge was the tallest of its kind in the world; the whole
project was completed in 26 months by Canadian contractors.
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| Foggy views |
As disappointing as it was that we could not see all the sites due to
the conditions, we do not have any regrets for taking the White Pass train
ride. We did experience “the railway
built of gold”.
Moving on we shall soon be in BC.
Moving on we shall soon be in BC.
