Gads & Hads Top Trip!
7th Aug 2006Skagway: Hiking the Chilkoot trail Finished this entry now... The Chilkoot trail was fantastic, we changed the plans a bit and started on Wednesday night, decided to hike 4 miles into the trail to the first campsite instead of camping at the trailhead. So from Dyea to Finnegans we were walking through rainforest, high risk of seeing bears so lots of talking. We arrived at Finnegans around 7pm (so 3 hrs hiking) had to put our food up the bear pole. There was a shelter where you have to cook, as well as an outhouse but this was too mosquito ridden to use. We were torn between being dissapointed there was noone else at the camp and pleased to have it to ourselves! Glad we changed our plans as not only did it make the next day shorter but gave us a practice of getting in and out of camp - for instance we changed when we purified water etc. The next day we walked from Finnegans to Sheep Camp, also through rainforest on the US side. On the way we saw lots of artifacts, eg rusty pans, stoves etc from the gold rush (189  . We detoured for at least a mile to see Canyon City remains, which included a huge boiler to run the old tram. The distance between Canyon city and Pleasant camp seemed much longer than between Pleasant camp and Sheep, so pleased too get there earlier than we thought! We soon got friendly with a group of 4 Canadian women - in fact one of them fixed my sleeping bag!
On Friday we were woken up by the women at 4.50 as we couldnt hear our alarms, got out of camp by 5.50am. It was quite a tough walk up to Scales, which is the bottom of the pass - above the tree line (about 2000 ft i think). We then made our way up the pass which was a massive boulder field, more climbing/scrambling than anything else. Loved it, made it most of the way before the clouds came in on us. Finally made the top (after 3 false summits) and stopped at the cabin for lunch. All along the Canadian side of the trail were beautiful views of the lakes. The walk to Happy camp from here was a further 2 1/2 hours, through snow, rivers and more boulder fields, but we made v.good time, arriving at 1.30pm. Not everyone was so lucky, as the weather on the pass got worse as the day went on, resulting in the last group arriving at Happy camp about 4 hours after us, so we had some hot water ready for their drinks. The start to Saturday was more relaxed, so we left camp at 9am. The weather was mainly dry so we could enjoy good views of the lakes and mountains all around. It took us around 1 1/2 to reach Deep Lake where we met some teenagers who intended to do the whole 33 miles in a day...in trainers! Tried to put them off but to no avail. From there the trail heads downhill back into a forest, but different rock to the US side. At the bottom of this descent was Lindeman City where there is a huge lake (Lindeman's lake) and a big campground. During the gold rush a huge tent city was here. Another 1 1/2 walking took us to the camp for that night - Bare Loon where we got a lovely spot overlooking Bare Loon Lake. Rich found an old raft which he tried to paddle unsuccessfully as it kept sinking and the ground was too soft to push off! In the end we threw his a rope and rescued him, not before he fell in! Some other campers did even better and found a canoe! Next morning we were woken by Katie - a 10 year old who particularly liked this job! The terrain from this point changed from grey rocks to sand, so we left Katie and Sarah (9 yr old friend) messages in the sand. Along the way we found a little log hut and a beautiful beach at the end of Lindemans lake. At the end of Lindemans lake was a mile of rapids down from Bennett where we ate lunch on the beach and caught the White Pass and Yukon train back to Skagway at 1pm. This ride is very spectacular, through the mountains. We could see some of the White Pass trail which was the other trail used during the gold rush - it looks easier but actually got called Dead Horse trail as over 3000 horses died on this trail during the gold rush from exhaustion etc. On arrival back in Skagway we headed to the Pizza Station where we all ate far too much pizza! By 10pm we were first in line for the ferry, making a beeline for the showers (the first in 6 days!).
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