We spent all day Thursday in Skagway. Mom went on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad tour while dad, Charles and I went on a 8-mile (round-trip) adventure hike in the Skagway mountains. A few days before our cruise, I printed off a few hikes in the area, one of which was to Lower Dewey Lake.
We set out on our hike to Lower Dewey Lake and quickly realized the trail was quite steep with very few switchbacks and full of rocks.
Along the way to Lower Dewey Lake, we passed this very run down privy in the trees.
After some more hiking, we made it to beautiful Lower Dewey Lake. I love this picture of the three of us at the lake.
Since we had all day to hike, we decided to continue to Upper Dewey Lake. However, the trail information I had did not include Upper Dewey Lake. We were not prepared with how steep the trail to the Upper lake was. We also did not have enough food or water to last all day, and did not know how far it was to the Upper Lake, so we turned around once we reached these beautiful falls.
Along the trail we talked with some fellow hikers who said they were headed to Upper Reid Falls, but saw some bear fur, got scared, and turned around. They also said the forest was too "creepy" for them. So, what did we do? We headed to Upper Reid Falls and our adventure continued.
The forest did remind me of being in a fairy tale. We had the thick forest all around us, it was foggy outside, with a river running along the trail. The bear fur that was seen by our fellow hikers was just some hairy-looking moss growing low on the trees.
Notice the milky appearance of the glacier water.
A quick stop for a picture at Icy Lake, along the way to Upper Reid Falls. A few feet from where I am standing, there was a pile of animal hair. We're not sure what kind of animal it was from, but I got my "Parent Trap" sticks and made alot of noise along the trail at this point. We didn't see any wildlife during the day.
The river washed away a few portions of the trail, so we followed some animal trails part of the way. We were never quite lost, but didn't exactly know where we were going either. We thought we reached Upper Reid Falls when we came to a clearing and saw these falls.
Dad wasn't satisfied that these were the actual falls, so we tried a different direction on the trail. We heard water being shot out of a pipe, so followed the direction of the sound. It was at this point I pulled out the trail information and it said that Upper Reid Falls was at the top of the water diversion pipe. Thanks dad for finding the real trail again!
We made it to Upper Reid Falls and enjoyed the beautiful waterfall. We couldn't hike to the base of the waterfall, so this picture doesn't show how tall the waterfall really is.
After our hike, we walked the streets of Skagway, ate lunch and went shopping for souvenirs. It was a fun day in Skagway!
Friday was another day at sea. We attended a cooking demonstration and tour of the kitchen galley. We also watched "Avatar" in the ship's theater.
Victoria, British Columbia
Saturday we took pictures with our waiters, Jose and Jeffrey. They were such fun people to meet!
We arrived in Victoria about 6:45 pm Saturday evening. Unfortunately it was quite foggy outside, so we didn't get to see all of the sights scheduled on our tour. We did get an in depth tour of the downtown area, though. We toured the beautiful Craigdarrock Castle, completed in 1890.
The Castle was filled with beautiful woodwork, stained glass and tile.
Located in the Dance Hall of the castle was this 1879 Steinway piano that visitors with "musical ability" could play. The only song I have memorized is "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief", so that is the song I played while Charles took my picture. It was fun to play that old piano!
After our tour of the Castle, the bus dropped us off in downtown Victoria. We walked around The Emporess Hotel and also visited the nearby grounds of the Parliament building.
We were quite sad when our 2010 Alaska Adventure ended the next day, but we are already planning a trip back to Alaska in 2011!
1 comment:
I love the pictures from your hike, it sounds quite adventurous! The castle in Victoria is beautiful; that is so neat you were able to play on that old piano!
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