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Deb & Walt on the Chilkoot Trail Day 3: Happy Camp to Lake Bennett |
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| We were happy campers at happy camp, but now its time to go... Its another long day ahead of us. |  |
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Right away the trail heads up. This is part of a five hundred foot climb that takes us past a canyon... These canyons, and the rapids and waterfalls that accompany them, are the reason why boats could not bypass this part of the trail |
| Here we are up high, looking forward and down, toward Deep Lake.. | 
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It
was a beautiful trail through here. Well worn, but not
muddy. Even though it had turned cloudy on this day, it still
didn't rain.
Rain in general is far less frequent on this side of the pass. Its cloudy here, but looking back toward the pass, it was really dark and threatening. It was certainly raining cats and dogs on the other side of the pass... |
| Originally
I wanted to cross the pass on my birthday, but we couldn't get passes
for that day, so we went one day earlier.
If things had gone according to plan, we would be on Long Hill and the Golden Staircase on this day instead of over here. Sometimes what appears to be bad luck is really good luck!! Past the canyon, we again wind down into the valley. |
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Deb stands by a portable iron canoe frame. This could have been disassembled and carried in a pack. Most likely it had some kind of canvas skin that came with it. But why did they put it together here? |
| Just
a little farther down the trail is this canyon. Looking upriver,
just past where we can see in this photo, we could hear the pounding of
a large waterfall.
We decided to walk off the trail to the edge of the cliff to see if we could see it. |
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There it is, to the left of me. The picture doesn't do it justice... It was really pounding. I wouldn't have wanted to take that metal framed canoe down this either. They might have rowed that canoe across Deep Lake, heard these falls, and decided to walk the rest of the way... |
| We
ate lunch in the shelter at Lindeman City. There was a large
community here in 1898, but now almost nothing except a campground, a
graveyard, and a lot of broken bottles from the gold rush.
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Fed and happy, we crossed this bridge just outside of Lindeman City. |
| And once across that bridge, we could look back at the town site below. On the corner where the river meets the lake, you can see what is now there. The Canada Park Headquarters, the shelter we were just in, and that's about it. The old town was all through the treed area left of the river. If you walk through it you see all kinds of broken bottles and empty cans that have been here over 100 years. |  |
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The trail was rocky and went up and down a thousand times. For quite awhile it wondered well away from the lake. The trail seemed to blunder aimlessly through the hills and forest... |
| There
was another campground at Lake ----. We were impressed by this quality
Canadian outhouse. Its on rollers so it can slide back and forth.
Once the pit is full, they can simply pull up those planks, and slide it
to the right over a new pit.
I did wonder what they do when that other pit is full. And what if you were in there and there was an earthquake?
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The
glaciers scraped this land clean of topsoil not long ago. Often there
are large areas of exposed bedrock.
Often I wanted to sit down... |
| Its just a walk in the park... A BIG park! |  |
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Here
is one o those pieces of exposed bedrock. The trail runs right
down the rock, and 100 years of footsteps do not show at all. You
have to watch the ground on the far side of the rock very carefully or
you will miss the point where the trail leaves the rock.
This 'trail along a rock' phenomena happens several time |
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Just about to
Bennett, there is an old cabin that is still in occasional use
today.
Some of the original Stampeders found this area appealing enough that they forsook the Gold Rush, and squatted here. No doubt you could make a good living from trapping fox and beavers, and in this area which is relatively dry and warm, you could grow a nice garden too. You could also pan for a little gold around here too...
This cabin is only a mile or two from Bennett, and quite close to the railroad. |
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Strangely,
as we approach Bennett (The lake is named 'Lake Bennett', but the town
on its shores is just 'Bennett'.) the road grows sandy. The
sand looks just like beach sand from the ocean. actually it is
granite that is crushed into sand in the creeks, and the the wind has
drifted it to the far side of the lake.
At Carcross, on the Klondike Highway, about fifty miles from here, this sand actually forms sand dunes, which the locals refer to as the Carcross Desert. |
| Deb and I at the end of the trail at Lake Bennett. It is August 12, 2003, my fiftieth birthday. Its hard to imagine that I would ever be this old. I am the luckiest guy in the world to be able to live this life of adventure... and to share it with a great wife like Debbie! | |
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Tomorrow, we must get on the train that takes us Back to Skagway. (No, the train does not go close to the Chilkoot Trail, we couldn't have just chicken out and hitchhiked back anytime!!) But the train doesn't leave until 1:00PM. That means we have the whole morning to poke around the old townsite. It also means there will be one more page before you are done! |
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| What
will our hero and heroine find? Will Walt cut his foot on some
broken glass? What ever happened to those blisters? Read on, to the next exciting chapter
of..
Deb & Walt on the Chilkoot Trail !! Other Adventures of Walt & Deb...
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