We arrived in Skagway early this morning. When I looked out the window trees were so close probably 30 feet away. What shocking is the depth of the water is 165 feet. Many of these fjords drop like a U, versus a V, or some slope down. The population in Skagway is to 1240 but in the summer it doubles to accommodate the 1 million visitors. That’s a lot of people. Skagway was an important port during the Klondike Gold Rush. The White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge railroad, part of the area’s mining past, is now in operation purely for the tourist trade.

Mom‘s train excursion didn’t start until 1230, so it was a slow lazy morning. Others on this excursion included Marta and Bill, Bowman and John. Patty, Techy and Miguel went for an earlier train ride, and I think it was a little shorter, but I had enjoyable time.

When you get off the boat, you have to take a very short shuttle to the end of the pier. There was a landslide a few months ago that took out part of the road so this is a precaution to protect people, just in case something falls again. Then you have to pay for another shuttle to take you into the city itself. It’s five dollars round-trip so it’s not much. I chose to take the shuttle but John, Cathy and the boys walked. I met them at the red onion which used to be a saloon and brothel. Now it’s a big tourist, attraction and restaurant. They ordered lunch, but I wasn’t ready to eat anything yet.

John, Cathy and the boys weren’t going on their excursion until 1:30, so we went into the city. John and Johnny were going gold mining while Cathy and Ryan we’re going to a musher’s camp. While we were sitting there, Patty and Techy walked in, and sat at the bar next to us.

I had fun shopping in town. I only bought two things: a picture potentially for my bathroom wall and some Karmelkorn, which mom is going to eat the rest of it when she notices it’s here.

Right as I was getting ready to leave town, the sun started to shine. It was nice to see the tops of the mountains. And when I got back on the boat, I took a number of pictures of the mountains, cruise ships, and just the view from the boat. It looked beautiful.

Mom thoroughly enjoyed her train ride. They saw waterfalls, the Skagway river, a wooden bridge built in 1903, and gorges. There were only 13 people on there tour, and they had lunch together, which was yummy and it didn’t hurt that the bar was open so they had mimosas. Here are some of Bowman’s photos from their trip.

Below are a few pictures from John, Cathy, Ryan and Johnny’s excursions.