Day 05 - 07/27 - Skagway

 Skagway is an interesting city for me. I first visited Skagway when I rode my Goldwing motorcycle to Alaska in 2009 with 3 other fellows.  We rode down the pass into Skagway and spent the night here before catching the Alaska ferry to Haines from which we rode up to the Haines Junction some 140 miles in probably the prettiest highway I've ridden on in the world. Since then we've visited Skagway by cruise ship 3-4 times and enjoyed it each time.  It's a town that exists for two reasons:  Tourism during the summer and it's a year round petroleum terminal for the interior year round. About 700 people live here during the winter and 10,000 cruise ship passengers per day visit the city.  


This trip I had pre-booked an afternoon excursion to the Musher Camp and we were able to get on standby for a morning city tour and bus trip up the pass.  The morning bus trip included a visit to the local historic cemetery.  While there, our guide mentioned that there was a nearby waterfall and Jakob immediately wanted to hike the 10 minutes uphill to it.  Lower Reid Falls is quite pretty and worth the hike.  During the bus ride Angela worked with Jakob on his Skagway Jr. Ranger workbook.  He had to complete 15 exercises to qualify for Junior Ranger status.  He easily completed the 15 activities.  When we returned to the ship, we were dropped off at the train station and walked over to the National Historic Park office and he was quizzed on the activities, passed, and was sworn in as a Jr. Ranger.  He was thrilled to get his badge.


We came back to the ship for a quick lunch and then boarded our shuttle to the musher camp which was about 30 minutes outside of town.  At the base camp we transferred to Unimog 4x4 trucks for the steep climb up the mountain.  Our guid was Mark and it was his first year as a guide. At the top of the hill is the musher camp.  Here the Iditirod level sled dogs are housed for the summer, and they keep in condition by hauling tourists around a course pulling rubber tired sleds.  It's great conditioning for the dogs and they absolutely love to do it.  The ride is about 2.5 minutes long and afterwards, we petted all 16 dogs on our team.  From there we rode back down the mountain to the base camp where we learned more about sledding and then got to hold the puppies.  This was one of Jakob's favorite activities of the whole trip.  It turned out that the current crop of puppies were all named after volcanoes in the Northwest.  Jakob got to hold Saint (Helens) and Rainier.  Leaving the base camp, we rode the shuttle back to the ship. As we walked the pier we spotted a seal who had captured a salmon by the tail.  The salmon was not having a good day.


A Unimog

Saint (Helens)

(Rainier)


A Salmon having a bad day


Jakob had some pool time before dinner.  After dinner we took him to Club HAL and we attended the comedian, Vince Acevedo, who based his entire show after interaction with the audience.  He was quite clever and kept is PG despite attempts by the audience to lure him elsewhere. We attended a set of the Billboard Onboard which was quite good and then retrieved Jakob from Club HAL and turned in for the night.


Tomorrow is Glacier Bay.  We look forward to our visits to Glacier Bay.

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