Severin's Expeditions: Chilkoot Trail

The last two summers I have lived and worked and played in Skagway, Alaska. Skagway is famous for the 1898 Klondike Gold rush. The miners came to Skagway, and through Skagway they accessed the interior where the gold was located. However, the trek was very difficult to get up and over these magnificent coastal mountains. The famous trail that these miners hiked is known as the Chilkoot trail. My first summer I got to hike the trail, but I didn't have much time. I did it simply in one day, with two other friends. We cheated a bit as we started at the top and hiked down the trail, so that we did not have to hike up the trail. It was still a long day covering roughly 37 miles in 14 hours. As soon as I left Skagway at the end of my first summer, my friend Andy and I began to plan our trek for the Chilkoot in the early spring, in the snow, just like the stampeders of 1898. We dreamed of it all winter long. It was myself, Andy, and his younger brother Jon. We set out on May 1st. It took us three days of 12 solid hours of hiking each day. The first day, the only way we were able to stay on the trail was by following bear tracks. On the second day we climbed over the pass. It was literally a perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky, it was unbelievable. Once we got over the pass we could hike anywhere we wanted to as all of the rocks and boulders were covered with snow, and all of the lakes were frozen over. And on the third day we hiked out. It was an amazing journey of epic proportions!

Soaking in the beauty of Alaska!