Chilkoot Trail

June 29
Lexi and I made final use of the hostel's kitchen by making scrambled eggs and pancakes. Then we boxed up our unneeded supplies and shipped them to Fairbanks. We took one or two last strolls through town and then packed our gear for good. At 1:00 Dyea Dave picked us up and with agonizing slowness began the 8 mile shuttle to Dyea where the Chilkoot Trail begins. He was an insufferable blabbering know-it-all who thought that horrible puns counted as historical knowledge. We stopped briefly at the extraordinarily defunct town of Dyea, once the starting city for Klondike prospectors and the site of large hotels, numerous restaurants, electric and telegraph service, and loads of other urban necessities. For a few years it was the largest city north of Vancouver. Of all this development, only the remnants of a barn remain, everything else had long since rotted and grown over into forest.

After some ado Dyea Dave brought us to the trailhead and left. To celebrate our departure, Paul, Lexi and I shared 22 ounce bottles of Snoqualmie Brewing IPS and Boundary Bay Old Bounder Barleywine (fabulous). It certainly wasn't the conventional way to begin a hiking day, but it sure lowered my pack weight!

The trail began as a climb up and over a small hill, and continued as a very smoothly graded path. We closely paralleled the silty Taiya River, crossed numerous tributaries on nice bridges, and took in occasional views of the valley. Long stretches were dryly covered only by well built lengths of puncheon. It is hard to imagine the bottomless muck found here 100 years ago and how wretched it must have been to wade through it with horses and crates of equipment.

In the late afternoon we arrived at the modern location of the Canyon City camp. For our purposes it was all quite civilized with a log cabin, bear poles and boxes, and smooth campsites. We cooked our tortellini-tomato-zucchini dinner and lounged around reading copies of 1898 trail journals.

-Dave

June 30
It was wonderful to have a long and peaceful night's sleep. With only 4.8 miles to hike today, we were hardly motivated to move too fast. A short bit up the trail we crossed the river on a rather bouncy suspension bridge and to the former Canyon City. We found an extremely rusted out cast iron cooking stove, old shoes, pots, pans, and broken dishes. The largest artifact of this major stop on the Klondike Trail was a 20' long steel boiler that at 50hp powered an aerial tramway that carried gear up and over the pass at 7 1/2 cents per pound. It is incredible that such a huge effort was made here, and that so little can still be seen.

The forested, mossy walk north was strongly reminiscent of northern Vermont or Maine. Many of the plants are identical or very similar. We lunched or snacked on the rocky riverside of Pleasant Camp. Paul instigated much hoopla by attempting to and eventually succeeding in knocking over a tall cairn on the other side of the river.

At 2:45 we arrived at Sheep Camp, the last stop before Chilkoot Pass. Laminated historical photos we found at one of the white canvas cooking shelters showed how this campground for 50 began life as a tent city, and gradually gained hotels, restaurants, and even the "Sheep Camp Bakery". All this has been taken away, flattened by deep snow, rotten, or washed away by a forceful meandering river. Shortly after dinner, NPS ranger Cip gave the daily presentation to the gathered throng, mostly the standard dire warnings of safety and treachery. In honor of tomorrow being Canada Day, he raffled off a Canadian Flag (courtesy of the RCMP and to be awarded in Lindeman City). Kathy won! We'll no doubt have fun flying it from the canoes as we travel the Yukon.

-Dave

July 1
We began our morning early (5:30) as we had agreed last night to leave by 6. Right on schedule, Dave and I were packed and ready to go. It took our companions an additional hour to pack. We lounged around the blessedly dry cooking shelter wishing we'd slept in.

Finally, around 7, we pulled out of camp and began our momentous climb up the pass under drizzling socked in skies. On account of the weather, we had few views, but I think that increased our appreciation of the things close at hand.

Soon after Sheep Camp, the forest gave way to a thicket of alders. This, in turn gradually shrank and soon we were walking across boulders dotted with pockets of alpine meadow. Clumps of tufted saxifrage with foamy white flowers, stiff leathery heather stalks with white bell-shaped flowers, bright yellow stonecrops tenaciously clinging to boulders all filled our view.

Boulder fields alternated with snowfields and all began to merge in my mind. The angle of the trail lessened and we found ourselves at the bottom of a large basin - at "The Scales". Here, gold rush packers would reweigh their loads and jack up the price for transporting goods.

From here, we began the final push up the "Golden Staircase" to the top of the pass. We made our way over steep boulders in the swirling mist. Occasional breaks allowed us to see the derelict remains of the cable car towers that once hauled goods to the top of the pass. Along the way, we passed mysterious derelict machinery, all of it very heavy.

We scrambled through the boulders in what seemed an incredibly remote place. Its hard to imagine it was once bustling with humanity. All the classic photos of ant-like humans crawling up the hill make it look like one smooth slope. All those photos were taken in the winter with who knows how much snow. In the summer, with the snow gone, the trail would not be so obvious were it not for orange wands showing the way. Numerous blind gullies branched off the route. In the white-out it was impossible to gauge how much farther we had to climb.

Finally, we made it to the top of the pass and crammed into a tightly packed Parcs Canada warming hut. During the stampede, Canadian Mounties spent the entire winter in this inhospitable place. By the time I got there, I was thoroughly chilled, and extremely happy to eat the soup Dave cooked up.

On the British Columbia side of the pass, we descended into a wide, flat bowl. It was impossible to keep our feet dry as we crossed numerous snowfields and melt water streams. After a short time, the sky lightened and we came into the sun. Looking backwards we could see clouds clumped around the pass while blue sky was in front of us.

We hike on to "Happy Camp", our home for the evening, and quickly set up our tent to take advantage of the rapidly diminishing sun to dry our tent. Luckily we dried out everything thoroughly before the drizzle came back. After an early dinner, Kathy and Phil went to bed and the rest of us played a rousing game of Silly Write N' Draw, featuring sheep and a pedestal.

-Lexi

July 2
It rained on and off all night. With only 5 miles to hike to Lindeman City we were not particularly motivated to get out early. At 8:30 we crawled out for breakfast, but the drizzle continued to wash out of the mountains, and we bided our time in the abri (shelter) watching some of the other 44 hikers come and go. At 11:30 (now back on Pacific Standard Time) the clouds lifted a bit and we trotted down the valley.

It became quite narrow, with rocky cliffs rising on both sides to high snow capped peaks. Waterfalls cascaded down every slope. Icy water plunged beneath weakening snow bridges. Labrador tea, great clumps of bunchberry, starflower, mountain heather, fireweed, wintergreen, and mountain azalea were common. Holding this palette together were the countless white flowers of heather. Paul, Lexi and I paused for a highly scenic snack break at Deep Lake. Farther on we often saw large orange and red columbines. Deep Lake was followed by a precipitous gorge with unrunably rocky whitewater. Over the course of the day, the landscape changed dramatically from exposed outcrop alpine to flatter sandy spruce aspen forest.

On the breezy (bug free) shoes of Lake Lindeman, we scoped out the mostly occupied Upper Lindeman campsites, and moved on to the nearby Lower Lindeman sites to set up camp. It was pleasantly early, so we spent much time in the canvas tent Lindeman City Library, looking up flowers, looking at historical photographs, and reading copies of short lived publications like the Bennett News. After dinner Canadian Patrol person Christie officially presented Kathy with her own full sized Canadian flag. The evening closed with a rowdy seven person (we were joined by Steve, another Chilkoot hiker) games of Klondike, the board game. Supplies were bought, gold found, and buildings burned.

-Dave