Skagway, AK - Day 2

This morning we went on a White Pass Summit Excursion. We traveled up from Skagway, Elevation 0, to White Pass Summit, Elevation 2,865, and on to and back from Fraser, BC, aboard the WP&YR (White Pass and Yukon Route) aboard restored, replica coaches pulled by vintage diesel locomotives. White Pass is one of the two passes that the prospecters in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 had to travel over from Skagway to get to Whitehorse, where they could then board boats down the Yukon River to the gold fields. Each person had to carry a ton of supplies up and over the Chilkoot Pass or the longer, less steep White Pass. The railroad was started in May of 1898 and was completed in two-years, two-months and two-days. Tens of thousands of men and 450 tons on explosives overcame harsh and challenging climate and geography to create the “Railway Built of Gold”. From Skagway to almost 3,000 feet at the summit, the train climbs steep grades of almost 3.9 percent, travels over some trestles and through 2 tunnels. The tight curves on the White Pass called for a narrow gauge railroad.