Chapter 31
Dead Horse Trail

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Rounding a bend, we could see the train that left in front of us up ahead, getting ready to go across a crazy-looking bridge.

And there it goes!

They made it, so it meant we must be next. For now, though, we still had a ways to go.

I apologize for all the pictures with lack of commentary to accompany them, but it was just so pretty that I don’t have much else to say!

I ventured outside once more. At this point, it was really getting cold. We’d gained a decent amount of elevation.

There’s our train snaking its way.

I just loved looking down into some of these valleys below.

I don’t know if there was actually a story behind poor Mickey Mouse going up against a rattlesnake to the side of the train, but these two were just perched there as we passed by…

Suddenly, it was our turn to get ready to cross the bridge, and as we looked down, we could see the train coming up behind us—which probably had the same view of us that we’d gotten just a few minutes earlier.

It finally really felt like we were pretty high up.

Tracy was even wide awake at this point.

That same river we’d been so close to was really far away now.

Up on one of these mountains, the narrator pointed out a mountain goat. It was just a speck to the naked eye, but we could sort of see it when we looked through our handy binoculars.

And now, here comes the bridge, but—uh oh! There doesn’t appear to be any track!!!

Just kidding! This steel cantilever bridge was built in 1901, and it is still standing, but it’s long since been put out of commission. At the time, it was the tallest bridge of its kind in the world.

I’m especially glad we didn’t have to go across this when looking at the rickety wooden planks holding up either end.

Our bridge was much less imposing, but it also looked much more structurally sound.

As we crossed it, I got a great view back toward the old bridge.

And here’s what it looked like to the right of the train.

After crossing the bridge, we went through a tunnel, and when we came out, we’d almost reached the summit of White Pass.

This is a great view of the “Trail of ’98″—the original White Pass Trail that was the bane of so many would-be prospectors.

Apparently starvation was extremely common among people trying to make their way up, and a number of travelers literally went crazy because of the lack of nutrition and rampant scurvy.

White Pass Trail was nicknamed “Dead Horse Trail” by famous American novelist Jack London—who experienced it during its heyday. Nearly 3,000 pack animals died as they tried to make their way northward.

We had officially reached White Pass—elevation 2,888 ft.

It was on the Canadian border, and this is where our train would be turning around.

This is literally a cabin built for Canadian mounties.

There was so much snow and ice all around us.

As a frame of reference, our tour went a grand total of about 20 miles away from Skagway. There’s another Port Adventure that continues on another 47 miles to Carcross—in the middle of Yukon Territory. Passengers then take a bus back to Skagway, and the entire round-trip lasts for 8 hours.

Now, to compare our journey to that taken by the actual prospectors, most people settled in Dawson City, YT, which is more than 400 miles from Skagway. So we were only seeing a tiny fraction of the trek made by those in search of gold.

It’s not difficult to understand why investors came up with the idea to build a railroad as a way of bypassing the most treacherous portion of the trail. Construction began in 1898 and actually went at a pretty remarkable pace. By 1900, track had been laid between Skagway and Whitehorse, YT—located 110 miles apart from one another. Unfortunately, by 1900, the gold rush was also dying down. Almost all the stores of the precious metal had been harvested, and prospectors had started trying to vacate the Yukon as quickly as they’d come.

In the end, about 100,000 people started to head north in the hopes of striking it rich. Only about 40,000 of them actually made it all the way to the gold fields. About 4,000 found gold, and even fewer actually got wealthy from the Klondike Gold Rush.

Here we are, waiting at the top for them to move the engine around to the other side of the train.

All the benches are designed so the chairs can be flipped around, because the train would essentially just go backward for the return trip.

After turning our seats, we were also asked to switch places with the people across the aisle from us so that everyone would have a different view on the way down.

In this direction, all the best views came right at the start of the journey.

Tracy was wide awake for the whole trip down, so it was as if she didn’t even miss anything.

Looking back up to the bridge once again.

This selfie didn’t come off quite as well as ours usually do.

Another big difference between the way up and the way down was that now the sun had come out for a good portion of the trip.

The last segment of the journey was more casual, as the narrator started roaming the corridors and selling souvenirs from the train tour. We decided that we’d wait until we visited the actual gift shop to see if we wanted anything.

Everyone around us on the train seemed to generally be in a much more jovial mood now that it wasn’t so early in the morning, but I think that the trip lasted just long enough so that we reached town again before cabin fever started setting in.

Disembarking from our train car, we were excited to be on solid ground in Skagway with several hours left in port.