Skagway, hehe

The next day landed us in Skagway (insert childish Dave giggle here) where we decided to rent a car and drive into the Yukon territory of Canada. We decided on the car because we could go at our own place and go much further. The railroad/bus combo would've cost us $460 and would not have taken us all the way to Emerald Lake. We hit Canadian customs about 1/3 of the way into our trip and that's also when we began to see some wildlife!

We spotted our first two bears down on the railroad tracks where we were able to photograph them from a safe distance (and with a cliff separating us) until they got spooked by a maintainence cart. We lost them at this point and decided that Dave should hike around the bend to see where they went. I proceeded to walk the other direction on the shoulder of the road. For whatever reason, I picked my head up momentarily taking my eyes of the railroad tracks and to my surprise, the two bears had made their way onto the road-- not at all far from where I was! My first instinct was to scream "Bears!" to Dave and my second was to RUN back to the car. Now I know that is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do but I could not stop myself from running. Luckily I didn't have a far distance to the car and that the bears didn't seem hungry nor interested in me. We got back in the car and took pictures of the two from the safety of our vehicle. From this point to nearly Carcross, we spotted 7 black bears. I think we were extremely lucky to see this many, but had we seen none, this drive still would've topped my list for most scenic drives! It was 90-some miles of gorgeous reflective mountains and lakes. We had not a cloud in the sky and got to enjoy the serene scenery all to ourselves. I'm so glad we got away from the crowds and took this nice long drive into the Yukon territory!

We stopped in Carcross to get some Tollhouse ice cream sandwiches (a vacation tradition) and then followed the "Get Your Buns In Here" sign to a local cinnamon roll shop. Boy were they delicious! With full tummies, we made it to Emerald Lake and took a moment to take in the beauty that is this area! Since it took us some 4 hours to make it this far, we knew we had to make better time on the way back in order to not miss our boat.

Emerald Lake