Skagway - Haines -

Woke up Tuesday morning in Carcross with a plan to take the 14 mile ferry ride from Skagway to Haines. Skagway is a cruise port and there are 4 giant cruisers scheduled in port today – guaranteed to be a shit show! The ride is only a couple of hours but comes down a nice canyon so promises to be a good one. The reason for the ferry is to do the ride from Haines into Haines Junction – amazing by all reports! The ferry isn’t scheduled to leave until 5:30pm so we have the day to kill in Skagway. Luckily we have the England/Croatia football match to kill some of the time!

It was cold and threatening rain when we hit the road – and sure enough, we did get rained on almost immediately after a quick stop at the Carcross Desert. Yes thats right, desert. The river brings sediment down the river, deposits it on the shore, and then wind slowly moves it up the hillsides. It’s a 14 square mile desert in the southern Yukon – very odd against the traditional Yukon landscape we had ridden through so far.

The ride down through the canyon was spectacular, but wet as it was raining steadily. Lots of cool waterfalls were visible from the roadside. We stopped at a historic suspension bridge but they wanted $18 for the full tour and $5 to just get a look at the bridge – so we skipped it. Just before Skagway is the US border to Alaska – this one is actually manned with agents unlike the one in Hyder.

Skagway was pretty much exactly as expected – a cool historic town ruined by the cruise line. Word has it they own 90% of the town. Historic Main Street was full of shops catering to cruisers. After parking the bikes near the ferry dock, we quickly found a taco stand, grabbed some halibut tacos and popped in the bar across the street to catch the second half of the football match. We lucked out with an exciting match going into extra time where as we know Croatia was the eventual winner.

We were told to be back to the docks at 3:30pm to line up for loading so just spent a couple of hours wading through the sea of cruisers on Main Street trying to soak up some of Skagway history. It was basically a hub for the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1800’s so it’s past is quite interesting. We even managed to find a delicious pint of IPA at the Skagway Brewing Company (probably owned by the cruise line).

We returned to the parked motorcycles and then lined up with the other bikers waiting to load into the cargo hold. This ferry was going all the way to Prince Rupert with our stop in Haines the first. We were the only bikes getting off – the other 5 continuing on to PR. It was fun chatting it up and trading stories from the road. Their trips were winding down while ours had barely started. The ferry ended up sailing 2 hours late so we stood around in the cold and wind for a long time. We finally got the load call and we’re leaving the dock around 7:30pm. The skies an seas were angry but the ride was quite smooth. Joe and I went out on the deck and up to the bow and could barely stand as the wine was so strong. I would have blown into the sea if I hadn’t had a death grip on the railing.

The one hour ride went quick and soon we were at the Haines dock with just a short 6 mile ride into town and our hostel for the night – a small compound of cabins on the edge of the dense forest. Since we have been heading back south it actually started getting dark around 10pm. We even got to squeeze in a load of laundry so now have some fresh clothes to wear!

We packed up and left the hostel around 8am, grabbed some breakfast in town and hit the road with Beaver Creek the target destination for the day. Just outside town we crossed back into The Yukon after chatting with the friendly Canadian border agent about motorcycling – he also rides a DR650. Shortly after the border we got crushed with rain. Then it let up a bit and we got crushed again. That pattern would continue all day long. The temps ranged from 40 – 50 degrees – freaking cold while wet on a motorcycle. The mountains all around were snow-capped and we learned at our lunch stop stop that the snow wasn’t there yesterday – it had just came overnight.

Around 4pm with still 120 miles to go, I was miserable and just wanted to get off the bike – but we gutted it out and made our destination in Beaver Creek. Luckily one of the three lodges wasn’t sold out and we got a room. Camping, our original plan, would have been horrible as it was still pissing rain when we arrived. We grabbed dinner at Buckshot Betty’s and hit the sack. Luckily their were really good blackout curtains in the room – sun now sets after midnight up here. Hoping for sunny weather tomorrow!