A few logistics: You have to buy a pass through Parcs Canada (only 50 per day are available), select your camps ahead of time, decide which day you'll do the pass, and make sure there's room on the train at the other end to bring you back to Skagway.
I went to Skagway a day early to do orientation and get an early start the next morning. During our orientation, a woman came in and asked for her certificate of completion. The ranger giving the orientation for the trail asked her how it was, and she responded with an exuberant "Amazing!" The ranger said, "See? It's not that bad!"
History: The Chilkoot trail was originally used as a trade route for the Tlingits. As American settlers came to the area, the trail became commercialized and used by prospectors. During the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899), the Chilkoot trail was the primary route to get to the Yukon until the railway was built from Skagway to Dawson in 1899. More Chilkoot Trail Info. More White Pass Railway Info.
Day 1: Dyea - Sheep Camp; 13 miles; approximately 1000 ft elevation gain; 9 hours hiking.
The beginning: There's a sign, and then a path going off to the right of the sign. That's it. For some reason, I expected a bit of fanfare, an arch, something more.
I started the trail at 10 AM, and was stuffed full of stress, worry, and anxiety. I didn't know if I could do it. I thought I bit off more than I could chew. I was worried my knees would stop working; that my pack was too heavy; that I wasn't strong enough; and then I reminded myself, one step at a time. I have all day to walk 13 miles, and 3 and a half days to walk 33 miles. There was no hurry, no rush, and literally, my job for the day was to walk. One foot in front of the other. And the words from my father came back to me, "Life is hard, yard by yard. Inch by inch, it's a cinch." I don't know where he got that from, but it always annoyed me when he said it. This time, it didn't.
So, I started walking. 13 miles with a 40lb pack. I started to develop a blister after an hour of walking. I stopped and put a blister bandaid on it, and kept going. By 1230, I made it to Finnegan's point and ate goat cheese, jerky, and deli meat until I was full and left for Canyon City. It was around Finnegan's point that I started to run in to people, and I was feeling less alone. Here and there I would run in to trail crew doing work, as well as old mining equipment, houses, a car door, and other relics.
It was around mile 9 (of 13) that my left knee started to bother me. Up until that point, I had a pace of about 1.6 miles/hr. The week before doing this hike, I hiked Mt. Juneau (see previous post) and on the way down, my right knee really started to bother me. I scheduled a visit to my Chiropractor to have a discussion about a short term fix to get through the longer hike. Turns out, my gluteus muscles are a bit tight which is causing everything else to tighten, which leads to knee pain. The solution? Bring a baseball and roll out my gluteus muscles at night. I hadn't rolled anything out before doing this hike, so I started to get worried. I tried walking sideways, backwards, slowly, but the pain would still pop up. I took breaks as needed, however, I was also starting to get concerned about making it to camp at a reasonable time, but one slow step was better than nothing.
When I reached pleasant camp, I had only 2 miles left to go to Sheep Camp. I thought that I had at least an hour and a half left of walking. This thought gave me energy. At 7 pm, the NPS Ranger has a talk at the shelter, and I showed up, breathing hard and sweating at 7:05 pm.
I squeezed in next to some people to listen to the talk, and ended up meeting the people I spent the rest of the trip hiking and camping with. There was the couple from Anchorage, the couple from Juneau, the family from Whitehorse, and the two Canadian couples. I started chatting with the mom from Whitehorse, and told her that I was doing this trip solo for my birthday. She told one of her 8-year old twins that, and he immediately declared "Happy Birthday!"
After the ranger talk about the conditions on the pass, one hiker got up and recited "The Men That Don't Fit In." And it turns out, I was hiking at the same time as one of the three artists in residence on the trail that summer, Josh Winkler. He was spending two weeks on the trail. He had carved did a demonstration at camp.
After scarfing down some food, getting the food put away, and refilling water, I went to set up camp. It was around 9 pm when I was setting up camp, and the couple from Anchorage were nice enough to help me.
More pictures from Day 1.
Day 2: Sheep Camp - Happy Camp; 7.5 miles; Peak elevation at 3525 ft (~2525 gain); 9.5 hours.
They recommend a 5 AM start time, which means a 4 AM alarm. For those who don't know me, I'm not the best with mornings. I can do it, but I move slowly. On this trip, I learned that it takes an hour and a half from the time the alarm goes off to when I can get on the trail. This includes, waking up, immediately deflating and packing my sleeping gear, getting out of the tent, refilling water (that goes in first), packing the tent (second in the bag), getting hiking clothes on, heading to the eating area, making breakfast, eating, cleaning up, and packing food in the bag (last to go in). Then, I'm on the trail.
Stopped here to get more water and hang out with the 8-yo twins who showed my backpack has a built-in whistle, even though I had purchased one for this trip.
I was on the trail around 530 AM. I was one of the last to leave, but there were still a few tents up as I left camp, which was reassuring to know there were people hiking behind me in the event I had any problems. I started up the trail and ran in to the family from Whitehorse who were taking a break for their 8-yo twins. As soon as one of the boys saw me, he yelled, "Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl!" His mom apologized and said, "You're going to hear that a lot." I told her I looked forward to more birthday wishes from him.
After an hour of walking, my knee was bothering me. I was a little stressed about this, so I stopped to change the way my sleeping bag was packed. I'm going to share this, because this is something that I learned, and it's probably something that more experienced people know. And sometimes the best way to learn something is the hard way. So, initially, I had my sleeping gear strapped to the bottom of my backpack. It would get loose as I walked and would dangle. The bag was dangling, so I stopped to try and figure out how to get it more secure. I figured out how to strap my sleeping gear and make it so it wouldn't dangle, and I kept going. About an hour later, I went to set my bag down and take another break. As I went to unstrap the waist strap, I was going to grab my bear spray, because I was keeping it handy, and it was gone. That's when I realized I had forgotten to grab my bear spray after readjusting my pack. I now had two and half more days of hiking, and no bear spray.
The good news, my knees didn't hurt the rest of the hike. I think it was the dangling sleeping bag that caused me problems.
So, I started to get to the pass (picture above shows some of the items left behind), and as soon as I saw the pass, I laughed and said aloud, "Wow, that is straight f*ing up, isn't it?" Turns out the artist in residence was right behind me and heard me talking to myself. I told him, "I thought I was alone, but you caught me." We chatted for a few minutes, and I told him when he was done, I was interested in a print that he creates after this trip.
After our conversation, Josh went ahead. He went straight up the mountain, and fast. I was moving significantly slower, but caught up with the family from Whitehorse at the bottom of the Golden Staircase. The staircase is more a bunch of boulders in the summer, but during the gold rush, they carved steps, and people went up, single file, with 50lbs on their back, and then hopped on sleds back to the bottom to get the next load of 50-lbs of gear. Luckily, I was going up, once, with about 38-lbs.
I ended up pulling out my gloves, and taking it one step at a time. Moving from one marker to the next. I was about halfway up when the family from Whitehorse started up, and they passed me! I looked at one of the boys, and told him that he was related to the mountain goats. For the next two days, I kept overhearing him talk about how he was part mountain goat to the other hikers. A lack of vertigo, and a lot of rests got me to the summit. But it was the false summit, and there were two more snow patches to go over. At some point, I heard the mom from Whitehorse yell out a big "WooHoo! There's the summit!" There were about a half mile ahead of me, and I was taking a break. That was just the amount of motivation that I needed to keep moving.
Picture at the pass. Alaska is behind me, and Canada is in front of me. No, my backpack wasn't always open. I had my camera stashed there, and opened it to take out the camera, take a picture, and put it back. You can also see the new and improved more secure location for my sleeping pack in white. And yes, that is a face of exhaustion.
There were quite a few times on the first two days, my mind would wander, and at one point, I laughed and said out loud, "What the hell am I doing here?" And I started to think Who is this person that willingly strapped 40-lbs of stuff to go for a historical walk in the woods for three and a half days? For a birthday celebration ? I didn't recognize myself. And it got me to thinking about how we perceive ourselves as individuals verses how others perceive us. Certainly, social media plays into that a lot. Social media allows you to present a facade that you filter, only the good stuff, and none of the ugly stuff. I don't have an answer, it was just a wandering train of thought, and a self realization that I might be a completely different person than I view myself. I shared this with a friend when I got back to town, and her response was, "I'm not surprised at all. You are absolutely the kind of person that would do that."
At the pass, I sat and enjoyed the sun. I hung out with the French-Canadian hikers and the Inuvik-Canadian hikers. We shared my bourbon on the pass, and rested. And I couldn't help but think that this was the best way to spend my 30th birthday, with a bunch of strangers on a hike.
Now, it was only 4 miles to Happy Camp. We were above the Alpine, and it reminded me of being at home in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor. No trees, tundra, lakes, and mountains with exposed rocks. Walking along, I was excited that the two hard parts were done. The first day, which was the long day, 13 miles, was done! The second day, hiking straight up and over the pass, was halfway done. And now, I got to reap the benefits of walking on reasonably flat ground. I was finally having fun. The stress and anxiety had lifted. I made it to Happy Camp after walking through a few rain squalls, sledding down a hill without a sled, and enjoying the birds singing around me. It was a 9.5 hour day.
At camp, I set up my tent and went to make some food. After eating, I sat on my tent platform in the sun reading a $1 book from the Skagway Friends of the Library . I fell asleep around 6pm in my tent, woke up at 9, read until midnight, and went back to bed. The next day was the easy and short day.
Day 3: Happy Camp - Lindeman City; 5.5 Miles; ~800 feet loss in elevation; ~6 hours hiking.
This was the easy and fun day. I didn't have to get up early, I didn't have a long way to go. The only thing on the agenda was to walk 5.5 miles before the sun set around 10 PM.Around 9 AM, there were a few of us in the cooking camp having breakfast and packing up, and this guy shows up. We didn't recognize him, and someone asked him where he came from. "Sheep Camp." Everyone said, "Wow, what time did you leave?" Apparently, he left at 5 AM, walked the 7.5 miles, up and over the pass, in 4 hours, and he was camping at Lindman that night (5.5 miles away). The previous day he started in Dyea and did the same 13 miles I had done the first day. He ate a block of cheese, and continued on.
Having all the time in the world, I really took my time. I stopped a few times and took pictures, and even had a cup of tea at one lookout.
I'll be honest, if I disappear, it might be in this part of Canada. It was beautiful there. Below you can see one of the rain squalls coming up the valley.
After running to the trees and waiting out the rain squall in the picture above, the sun came back. I had been hiking between the two Canadian couples and the Anchorage couple. The four Canadians hiked ahead, and the Anchorage couple was just behind me. The sun was out, and it was a little humid after the rain went through. I was a little warm, and I had all the time to spare, and the thought crossed my mind, This is my 3rd day hiking, I'm a little dirty and greasy right now. How many times in my life am I going to have the opportunity to go swimming in a high alpine lake on the Chilkoot Trail? My answer, considering how lucky we were with the weather, likely never. So I left the trail and went out on to this small peninsula on the lake and found, what I thought was fairly private spot. Since it was my birthday, I had brought along my Birthday Swimming Suit, put it on, and jumped in Deep Lake. It was cold, and I might've exclaimed that out loud. I swam out a little, ducked my head, and came back in. In a high alpine valley, your voice echoes well, and the couple from Anchorage came back to check on me, yelling through the few trees that were there, they asked if I was alright. I replied the cold water needed a proper exclamation.
Post Swim Selfie. You take a lot of selfies when you hike alone.
I had a bunch of energy for the next 3 miles and bopped along the trail singing my new song, "Hey Bear" to the tune of "Hey Jude" since I was significantly lacking in bear spray.
When I got to camp, all my hiking compatriots were having lunch before heading to camp at the next site. At Lindeman City, there are two camp sites, Upper Camp and Lower Camp. I decided to go to Lower Camp because it would be closer to the trail head in the morning. I was the only one who decided to camp on Lower Camp, and as soon as everyone left after lunch to go the next 3 miles to Bare Loon, I had the site to myself. I spent the evening reading about the Chilkoot Trail in the Interpretive Tent Parcs Canada set up at Lindman. After that, I ate my birthday chocolate, drank some bourbon, and read my $1 science-fiction anthology before going to bed around 9 PM.
My quiet reading corner at Lake Lindeman.
More Day 3 Pictures
Day 4: Lindeman City - Bennett; 7 miles; Very little change in elevation; 3 hours 45 minutes of hiking.
Given the pace I had been hiking the past couple of days, I was a little anxious about making it to Bennett for the 3:15 train. I told myself that I wanted to get going by 7 AM, but didn't get on the trail until 8 AM.On the trail, I had quite a few conversations with my new friend "Bear."
"Hey Bear, I thought you said I was going to have some flat stuff for awhile."
"Hey Bear, Thanks for the sun, I'm really enjoying this."
"Wow Bear, no wonder you live here, this is beautiful. Too bad your eyes are so bad, and you can't enjoy this."
In case you were wondering, to the tune of "Hey Jude," the lyrics to the song go,
Hey Bear, I'm over here,
I am walking up the hill now,
I just want you to know that,
I really don't want to run into you.
Hey Bear, I'm over here,
I'm just heading to camp now,
And I don't want to surprise you,
Just letting you know I don't want to see you.
And then I forgot how the melody went, and repeated myself a few times. And for those who are musically inclined, I know how bad this parody is.
After an hour and a half of walking, I made it to Bare Loon and all my hiking buddies were just packing up after breakfast. It was 9:30 AM, and I had 4 miles left to walk. I thought it was going to take me a lot longer than that, and I realized, that I might be able to make it to Bennett by noon.
My Anchorage Hiker-Friends took my picture next to Bare Loon Lake. Bare Loon was probably one of the prettiest camp sites.
This is where I really surprised myself. In 2 hours and 15 minutes, I walked 4 miles and made it to Bennett at 11:45 AM. I came upon the bluff (pictured below), and saw the Bennett Church steeple to the right, and declared to myself, "Holy Shit. I did it." And to my left, my hiking friends from Juneau looked over and said, "Hi, Monica." I was caught talking out loud to myself again.
I decided to head down to the train station and check things out. I walked down, took off my boots and put on my sandals, and shared the last smidge of bourbon with the other hikers. I decided to go to the lake for a snack and to sit down to read. As soon as I opened up my $1 dystopian book, the family from Whitehorse joined me, as well as some other kids from Whitehorse I hadn't seen before, and the French Canadians. We all ended up swimming while waiting for the train.
Bennett Lake, looking north.
My Whitehorse Hiker-Friends got a picture next to the train.
They sequestered the stinky Chilkoot Hikers to one car.
I laughed to myself when we sat down for a 2-hour train ride to take us back to where we started after walking for three and a half days. It made me think of that quote, "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey." And literally, our destination was where we started. If it had been about the destination, then the entire journey would have been pointless.
More Day 4 Pictures
I spent a lot of time and energy planning and prepping for this trip. I've never done something like this before, and it was exciting and scary. I haven't gone backpacking, I haven't gone tent camping as an adult, and I haven't done multi-day trips that didn't include a visit to a car where extra provisions were stashed.
Every day when I was walking, I kept thinking about the girl who walked in during the orientation and proclaimed that it was "Amazing." And every day, when I was walking, I would have answered that question differently. The first day, I would have said, "Stressful... overwhelming..." The second day, I would have said "Challenging," and then "Rewarding" once I got over the pass. The third day, I was genuinely enjoying myself, and the word "Victory" came to mind. And when I was sitting on the train looking around at everyone I had been hiking with , I felt proud of myself. Even though I started the trail anxious about what I was doing and worried I couldn't handle it, I was proud that I kept going, didn't give up, didn't panic, and kept putting one foot in front of the other. When I got back to town and my phone blew up, and everyone asked "How was it?!" the answer I settled on, "Ups and down, literally and figuratively."
Which leaves me with one last phrase that kept running through my head as I was walking: If you do what is easy, life will be hard.
Every day when I was walking, I kept thinking about the girl who walked in during the orientation and proclaimed that it was "Amazing." And every day, when I was walking, I would have answered that question differently. The first day, I would have said, "Stressful... overwhelming..." The second day, I would have said "Challenging," and then "Rewarding" once I got over the pass. The third day, I was genuinely enjoying myself, and the word "Victory" came to mind. And when I was sitting on the train looking around at everyone I had been hiking with , I felt proud of myself. Even though I started the trail anxious about what I was doing and worried I couldn't handle it, I was proud that I kept going, didn't give up, didn't panic, and kept putting one foot in front of the other. When I got back to town and my phone blew up, and everyone asked "How was it?!" the answer I settled on, "Ups and down, literally and figuratively."
Which leaves me with one last phrase that kept running through my head as I was walking: If you do what is easy, life will be hard.
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