Where's the Bear?

Day 46 – June 25 Skagway/Haines

Glen woke up early this morning and took Sophie for a walk into town to make reservations for the train ride up White Pass and the Yukon Route. It’s all set for 12:45pm, so no reason to wake everyone else up yet.

We spent the morning exploring Skagway, including a couple museums. We learned that Donald Trump’s grandfather, Fred Trump, built, ran and owned a hotel (even moved the whole hotel when a better spot was available) in Dyeas. It did so well that he built another and another. This was the beginning of the Trump Empire. We then traveled down the block for lunch at the Skagway Brewing Co. Mmmm…good beer and massive filets of Cod!

Glen and Shawn returned the leftovers to the boat, and met the girls at the train station for our ride up the mountain. Oops! Glen left the tickets on the boat! Good thing he’s a good talker. He got himself out of buying again and got us on the train. However, we wondered if we really got to ride on the train, since we started the trip by walking the tracks.

Finally on our way, we saw beautiful mountain and river views and a few mountain goats far off in the distance. The tour guide also pointed out parts of the trail that the Klondike Stampeders hauled their year’s supply of staples (a thousand pounds) from sea level over the 3000 ft pass to find their fortune. It seems to us that the best way to make that fortune was to be a packer, who made the long trek multiple times hauling others supplies for money.

Back to the boat, we pushed off and headed for Haines, where Bill and Rocki Rostad (ski patrollers from Summit East, who live up here when not skiing in Washington) picked us up and took us home for dinner. After a lovely dinner they took us on a hunt, searching for the elusive Alaskan bear. We’ve determined it’s all a hoax; there are no bears in Alaska. We did find a beautiful lake with perfect reflections of the surrounding mountains. We also saw an abundance of the state bird…stupid mosquitoes! Very large and hungry mosquitoes!

Emptied Sophie then went home to Magic.