NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 15-16 - ALASKA!!! CARCROSS DESERT, EMERALD LAKE, WHITE PASS & SKAGWAY

Brrrrr It got a tad bit chilly overnight at Teslin.  But the sun came streaming in the windows in the morning. It sure was beautiful rising up over the lake with the mountains in the background.

It really has been quite comfortable traveling along in the motorhome. We have stuff pretty well set up that we can easily make 4 months living in here. It's only 25 ft long. But in the back slide goes out that's an additional 3 ft of bedroom space. 

   

We went out to let Nick do his thing and saw FROST on the picnic table! Yep, it got cold overnight. But Frost was nothing compared what we were going to see later on today...

We walked around a bit to get a little exercise. I have some of that on my YouTube with the link down below. It sure was a nice morning. 

We headed out and got some miles underneath us. We swung off the Alaska Highway and cut over to catch the southern Klondike Highway. We were heading towards Skagway and that was our goal for today. We got up as far as Tagish, and found a nice little boat landing next to the river. We stopped there to cook up a lunch.

How Wisconsin-ish is this? We had bratwurst from the Kwik Trip and we had buns from Aldi's. It made for a quick lunch because we already had the bratwursts cooked up and in the freezer. We only had to throw them in the microwave for a few minutes.

As we headed towards Carcross, I could see something bobbing and swaying way up in the trees from a distance. At first I thought it might have been a porcupine. But as we got closer, it was much much larger! (I have depth perception limitations in my vision!)

Look what the heck we found way high up in a tree? I mean REALLY high up in a tree along side of the road.

He was not some little cub, he was HUGE!!!

Yes!!!! This bear was way high up in the tree, dipping AND swaying and reaching up and grabbing all the branches to eat the tips off of them. He was munching down on the little red buds that were coming out of the ends of each skinny branch.

We have no idea how this tree could hold such a huge bear. He had his butt jammed against one trunk and his paw wrapped around another. His other paw was ripping off the branches from the tree to munch the ends. It was totally amazing!  We saw him rip an entire limb off the tree in one swift yank. 

We watched him for quite a while. There's some video on the YouTube below of him actually in action.

So if you think you can climb a tree to be safe from a bear, think again!

At Carcross, we came to the southern Klondike Highway. We did a quick little detour to the north a bit. Just north of town is a huge desert! Yep, there is a desert in the Yukon.  What a beautiful panoramic view. But it was extremely windy.

We took Nick out there on his leash. He was being silly dashing around in the sand. He acted the same way when he was along the shores of Lake Michigan. I've never seen a dog enjoy sand as much as him. He doesn't like the water, just the sand. A desert is perfect for him.

We walked around a little bit, enjoying the unusual terrain. There was a sign to pose by, but suddenly a tour bus came up from gosh knows where. About 20 tourists came out and clustered around the sign so this was the best I could do.

Even though it was windy, it sure was a beautiful day. The blue sky had puffy clouds and streaks of thin white clouds. It made a really interesting contrast. Especially for photos.

The storyboards at the site gave some information on how this unusual desert came to be.

It is actually the bottom of an ancient lake. The glaciers in this part of the country have really created some interesting formations.

Just a tad bit north of Carcross is another amazing place. It's called Emerald Lake. We saw it once on somebody's YouTube. So we just had to drive there because it was just a few miles away. Oh my! This color is totally natural. These photos are completely untouched.

And we still have the streaky wispy clouds in the sky that made it look really interesting.

This is what Google has to say about it: 

"Emerald Lake's distinctive blue-green hue is primarily due to marl, a mixture of fine clay and calcium carbonate. Sunlight reflecting off this white layer of marl on the lake bed creates the vivid color. Additionally, glacial meltwater flowing into the lake from the surrounding alps carries fine particles of glacial flour, which further contribute to the color by dispersing sunlight."

Of course, we posed for a cheesy tourist shop with the selfie stick. That is, before the winds blew us away off the side of the road.

There's a beautiful cabin down at one end. Can you imagine waking up and looking out at that every morning?

We turned around and headed back down to Carcross. From there we are heading with and west towards our next goal... The big one...

WE MADE IT TO ALASKA!!!!!

Yes yes yes, we crossed the border into Alaska at 2:45 p.m. We are headed towards Skagway on the South Klondike Highway. But first, We have to get through White Pass.

Aptly named, because it is very very white! White with *S*N*O*W* !!!!

Now, I don't think I can even find the right words to describe what we drove through. Yes, we are used to snow. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We have snow. But we also have trees and roads and pretty much slightly rolling hills. But nothing like this. 

This stuff was many many feet of mounds of snow that look like marshmallow puffs that all fell into place. In the beginning there were some rocks sticking out here and there so you had the idea of that you were at least driving over terrain or mountain tops.

As we advanced further through the past we could see that up ahead it was becoming darker and darker and the only thing you could see ahead were heavy clouds. We were driving straight into the clouds. This is not a very deep pass. So through it is also way up high with the mountain tops, and climbing all the while.

Now this is where it becomes almost another world. Everything is smooth with snow. I can only imagine the winds that blew it into the soft smooth looking mounds. Although the road was clear going through the middle, on all sides of us everything was white solid mounds of snow. It was really really unusual.

The more we drove through the mounds of huge marshmallow snow, about 15 to 20 mi in the mountain peaks started poking through. Those were ice blue looking in the eerie clouded light of the day.

I have never experienced something like this, being surrounded by all snow and nothing else really. There were no trees dotting the landscape, nor were there any craggy cliffs or mountainsides that we have seen so far. Everything was absolutely covered in snow. It was strange to my eyes.

We were so high in altitude that our ears popped, and sounds were muffled. That only added to the strange sensation of moving along the puffy mounds of snowy mountains, with no real landmarks to let you think you were really on the ground?

After 20 to 30 miles, we started to descend in altitude. Bit by bit we could see more rocks on the sides of the roads. 

Soon we were reaching areas that were starting to look less eerily moonscaped and more natural. 

We came up to the suspension bridge, named after Captain William Moore. He is the person who blazed the trail for the Klondike Gold Rush and established the town of Skagway.

Even though there were still snowy mountains in the distance, we were driving now along edges of beautiful stone.

Slowly my senses started returning to normal, and things were more comfortable with traveling through this terrain.

The high angled bars that reach up over the road have to do with helping to guide the traffic during the heavy snows or limited visibility. Especially the snow plows.

our fearless Captain Steveio maneuvered us through the entire White Pass without a glitch. I am so relieved, and confident in his driving skills that we made it safely.  

The other thing I am grateful for is the experience of coming through here with SNOW instead of just summertime. The event will forever be in my brain. One of those thing you cannot forget. 

Down down we descended into the town of Skagway. It's a crazy town with a lot of tourists and totally depends on the tourist industry. The actual population is only around 900 people. 

There are two municipal parks for camping in. One is called the Pullen Creek, located right down by the marina and all the cruise ships and craziness and shops. In the review it was mentioned that the tourists from the cruise ships walk right through the campground, cutting through the sites, to get to the downtown. That doesn't sound like a nice place to us.

The other one is called Garden City and is located up further in the town right across from the police department and the school. We felt more comfortable at that one. 

https://skagwayrvparks.com/garden-city-rv-park/

We had reserved online for two nights here. We weren't sure what we were going to find when we got there. So since the weather was going to be rainy and icky for 2 days, we knew we would be lacking solar. This campground had hookups and we settled in for two nights. It was a tad bit pricy at $50 a night US.

But it would be home 

for the next 2 days....

If you would like to see the YouTube video that goes all along with this blog, please click here: 

174 Miles travel today 

2903 Miles so far