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Deb & Walt on the Chilkoot Trail Day 2, Scene 1: Sheep Camp to The Scales |
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We arise! Our packs, bellys, and water bottles are full. There are no more excuses. Today is the big day 13 miles, up and over, and no place to camp short of our destination... |
| The trail began easily, but always up. Bridges crossed the creek may times. The trees got smaller and gave way to bushes. We were nearing the tree line, and increasingly got full views of the valley. | 
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trail kept going upwards at a constant pace. the Taiya River, now much
reduced was always right beside us. Ahead was 'Long Hill'
'Long Hill' was not named after Mr. Long. |
| As we started up Long Hill, the brush gave way completely. The hill was an enormous scree pile of large boulders. |  |
| The trail was anyman's guess through here, It really didn't matter much. Sometimes you could tell you were on it, and sometimes it was just rock. But it was obvious where we were going; up. And one route was pretty much the same as the other. |  |
| It doesn't take long for Deb to almost disappear amidst these rocks. This is a more visible part of the trail. It kind of hard to tell where Long Hill begins and ends, since it is all uphill. At the top of this incline, the trail flattens out for a few hundred yards, then continues up to 'The Scales'. |  |
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Looking back down the valley from Long Hill. Our weather luck was great. The date is August 11, 2003... |
| Same view, but lower, looking at the bottom of the valley, and showing the jumble of rocks that is Long Hill. |  |
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This is the flatter area mentioned above. Now, for the first time, we are beginning to see the top of the pass, visible in the upper left corner. |
Same spot, but a vertical shot, and farther to the left. The lowest point in the background is the Chilkoot Pass. Now we are beginning to see the Golden Staircase, the photographs of which defined the struggle in the Gold Rush of 1898. |
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Ascending to The Scales, this shot is looking back into the valley. The flatter area where the last few photos were shot is clearly visible, and behind that, the valley bends to the left and drops down Long Hill. |
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few feet further up and we are at the Scales. In 1898, at this
point, those who packed goods for others would re-weigh the items they
were packing, and a higher fee was charged for the final assault on the
pass. there was a large set of scales here for weighing the goods,
and the name stuck. There was also a tram built here that could
take a man and his goods over the Golden Staircase for a stiff
fee.
In 1898 the men were accumulating in this area during January, February and March. The need was to arrive at Lake Bennett with enough time to build a boat before the ice went out of the lake in May. Once the ice went out, it would be a fairly simple matter to navigate the lakes and down the Yukon River to the Klondike Goldfields roughly 600 miles away. The key was to have your boat ready, when the ice went out, as that's when the rush would truly become a race. At the top of Chilkoot Pass is the US - Canadian Border. In order to prevent a mass starvation at the goldfields, the Mounties set up a customs tent at the top of the pass and required each man to have one years supplies before he entered the country. In practice that means each man and woman had to have around 2000 pounds worth of food and other goods. A man would typically carry about 50 pounds (as we did) up a three or four mile leg, then return and get another load, this means that each Stampeder would have to climb each section about forty times before he could start on the next leg. What we did in three days, a Stampeder would have had to take at least 120 days to do... And we never had to backtrack... Below Deb and I have reached the scales. Just above my left ear is the summit of Chilkoot Pass. From there, extending down along my pack is the giant scree pile known as the Golden Staircase. Many Stampeders gave up at this point, and dropped their good where they remain to this day.
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| Will our hero and heroine survive? Will Li'l Skookum Debbie have to carry her husband over the trail? Read on, to the next exciting chapter of.. | |