Day 40 – Tuesday 8/16/2011

Skagway, AK to Teslin Lake, YT – 152 miles

Today was a backtrack day, back up over the White Pass and the spectacular scenery along the 60-mile stretch from Skagway to Carcross, then a 30-mile hop up the Tagish Cut-off to the Alaska Highway at Jake’s Corner and thence to tonight’s campsite at Teslin Lake Campground, a Yukon Government campground just west of the town of Teslin. Except for the Tagish Cut-off, this was all going back over roads travelled previously; some just a couple of days ago and some way back on Day 12 as we made our way northward. While I like to lay out our travels with as little backtracking as possible, there are too many places in Alaska at the end of one road or another to avoid covering the same road twice. Homer, Seward, Valdez, and Skagway – all destinations not to miss – are such places. The wonderful thing about these backtracks is that they are all through the most majestic settings and scenery on earth, so seeing them again from the other direction is like déjà vu all over again, like a second helping of a favorite dessert, like watching a special movie like Hero a second time. Tomorrow we’ll continue to backtrack down the Alaska Highway to the junction with the Cassiar Highway just this side of Watson Lake, and that will be the last of the necessary backtracking for this trip.

But back to the beginning of the day… It rained most of the night. When we got back to the Tiger after our catamaran cruise, there was a tent set up in the next campsite. There was a lot of laughing and hoorah-ing going on, but that was before the rain began in earnest. They were gone by the time we woke up this morning. Whether they just got an early start or whether the rain was just too much for them I don’t know; I do know that I’d hate to be sleeping in a tent many of the nights we’ve had along the way. I have the utmost admiration for the bicyclists and motorcyclists making this trip (and there are many), especially those doing it solo. You see them coming into the campsites late, often in the rain, setting up a small one-person tent and heating a can of mini raviolis or beanie wienies over a small propane stove. It’s gotta be a miserable way to travel. I guess I’m just getting old and forgetting how adventurous a trip like this is for those blessed souls who aren’t burdened with the “sensibilities” of us geezers.

But the rain brought back our leak above the door and along under the upper window. I thought I had it at least partially cured, but this was the first real rain we’ve had in several days so I guess I was just kidding myself to think that the fix would be so easy. When we get home I’ll pull all the rubber molding out of the trim covering the roof joint and re-tighten and re-seal every screw in the roof-to-body joint around the entire motor home. That and a few other little improvements we’ve thought of along the way.

We lollygagged around this morning, waiting for the rain to let up before we got away. The first stop was the one and only gas station in Skagway for my last chance at “cheap” American gas before getting back into Canada for the long stretch ahead. At $4.70 a gallon it wasn’t exactly cheap, but at least better than the $5.50 and higher than gas costs here in the northern regions of Canada. The RV park didn’t have wi-fi, so our next stop was the local library to use their wi-fi to check e-mail and upload the last three days’ blogs. That took a while because the library didn’t open until noon, so I sat outside on a bench where the signal was weak and the service slow. Then it was back up the long hill to White Pass at the Alaska/BC border, a quick stop at Canadian customs, and then back along the several mile-long “moonscape” portion of the road. Once past the moonscape, the road dropped down into the spruce and aspen forest and along Tutshi and Nares Lakes to Carcross. I’m amazed at the number and size of large natural lakes in this area. They’re all similar in that they’re several miles long – some thirty to fifty miles – and fairly narrow – two or three, sometimes maybe four or five miles wide. They’re nestled in steep mountain valleys, each surrounded by spectacular mountain ranges. Any one of them would be a highlight for a trip like this, but we’ve seen and driven along so many I’ve lost count. What a trip this has been!

We stopped for a picnic lunch on the banks of another such lake, Bennett Lake, at the small town of Carcross. Bennett lake is where the Klondike miners coming over Chilcoot Pass stopped to build boats or rafts to begin their journey down to the Yukon River and then northward toward the gold fields up around Dawson City. After lunch we branched off onto the Tagish Cut-off and east to re-join the Alaska Highway. Our camping spot for tonight was just an hour away, and we arrived here at about 4:30 Yukon Time, which is an hour behind Alaska Time. As I said above, we’re parked right on the shore of Teslin Lake, which is visible just a few yards away through some aspen trees. It’s a bit cool, and the mosquitos are out, so we’re enjoying a glass of wine while I write and Jeanette reads Michener’s Alaska. Life is good.