This morning we woke to find the ship dock side in Skagway.  We have booked a train tour through the white pass.  So after a quick breakfast at the buffet (first time we did a buffet breakfast) we headed to the Princes Theatre to meet up with the other PCA members taking the trip.

The PCA group taking this train tour was really quite large, they had us staged in the Princess theatre, the largest theatre on the ship, we were split into three groups probably of about 60 to 80 people each.  This was a great way to get us off the ship in an organized manner.  To get to and from the ship we had to all take a small bus because there were rock slides between where the ship was docked and town / where we pick up the train.

The train consists of older style cars pulled by a diesel locomotive, the cars have a small kerosene heater at the front and simple bench seats for two people each.   These trains have about 10 cars each.

The tour starts in Skagway and makes its way up the White pass.  The pass is how the original gold miners made their way up to find their fortunes.  The origial walking path was really not really a path, it was meant for traffic to go in both directions and was so narrow that it could barely allow anyone to walk in one direction.  The original prospectors had to carry all of their equipment along with their animals along this narrow path, many did not make it and of those that did very few made any fortunes to speak of.  

The train winds through the pass, starting at the town and working its way up the mountain until we cross Into Canada, so we did spend about 10 minutes in the Yukon where there is a loop on that the train takes to get us back to Skagway.  In total the trip takes about two hours.  

The scenery, the wide scoping views and the ride through the wilderness was amazing.  Really worth the trip.  The train left us where we started.  We decided to make our way into Skagway.

The town itself has maintained its klondike era charm with small the traditional small buldings along their broadway all turned into shops for the tourists.  Its worth mentioning that this is a very small town, and today they had four cruise ships in the harbour, and apparently during the height of the season this is normal.

Krista and I did a little shopping starting with some really good popcorn and taffy.  We were on the hunt for a few things, Krista wanted a Pandora charm for Alasks, I wanted a T-Shirt with some indiginous art on it and a christmas ornament.  All three gathered in no time.  

The crowds as can be imagined were insane with four large cruise ships in port so we made our way out of town in a hurry and decided to take a quick hike up where we could get some great views of the town and to their lower lake.  It was quite a hike up the hill, it was about a 500ft climb upward which took us about 45 minutes.  This might have been a bit much for me my knee does not work going down hill, and my hernia was not liking the stress of going down, I can climb but decending is not really great.

We then made it back to the ship around 3:00 the ship leaves at 5:00 everyone had to be abord by 4;30. 

Tonight we have dinner planned.  

Tomorrow we have a day at sea before we reach Victoria