Day 4: Skagway

On day 4, we arrived in the rather odd little town of Skagway. It was apparently very popular during the gold rush era with a population of 20,000, but since then the population has dwindled to 800. Well, I think that pretty much sums up Skagway according to what I read. We decided not to do any of the excursions since most of them centered around the gold rush and instead ventured off on our own on some trails. We first decided to head to Upper Reid Falls. Below is a picture of Icy Lake which is on the way to Upper Reid Falls.

The trail was clearly not designed for David. His shoulders were a bit too wide to get between the trees.

Below is the pipe that we had to follow up to the falls. They are diverting water from the falls to Icy Lake. It was quite odd and unnatural. We kept hearing this very odd noise when we were walking and did not know what it was til we got up to it and realized that it was water coming out of a pipe. It sounded like a plane. Not exactly what you are expecting on a nature hike.

We finally made it to Reid Falls and David wanted to try out the tripod. I think this picture is take number 47. I was getting quite bored waiting for him. He kept saying he looked weird in the photo, I tried to tell him there are just some things a camera cannot change.

After Upper Reid Falls we decided to hike to Upper Dewey Lake. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a nice overlook. Below you can see the extremely well planned city of Skagway.

The hike to upper dewey lake was a bit more strenuous than we were expecting. It had very long switchbacks that were very steep and rocky. We could not make it very far without getting out of breath. We were passed by a guy who was probably in his 70's. Below is the falls connecting the Upper and Lower Dewey lakes which is what you follow up to Upper Dewey Lake.

We eventually realized that we were not going to make it to the top. We ran into some people who had made it to the top and they said that we were only half way there after we had been walking for about 1.5 hours. Also, after this point the trail was covered in snow and I did not have boots so it was not going to happen. Someone had carved into the bridge, "Long Way Yet". Apparently, we were not the only ones who found this trail to be quite tiring.

Since we did not make it to Upper Dewey Lake, we settled for Lower Dewey Lake. David again got out the tripod. At least we are learning how to use our camera.

We then headed to Yakutania Point hoping to see some seals, but sadly there were none. That night we tried again at another game and played the Jeopardized Trivia Challenge and we of course lost and placed second, but we still got the princess grocery bags, woohoo. We also went to the Island Princess International Crew Show, which was just scary. I don't understand why everyone always wants to sing at talent shows, there are other talents that one can have.