Chilkoot Day One...Dyea to Canyon City

We spent the day prior to hiking in Skayway. It is a tourist town with four cruise ships in town the day we left. There are some good little outdoors stores for last minute shopping.

Day 1

 We arranged for a ride to Dyea…the start of the trail and arrived there around 10:00. There are a few transport services in Skayway so it cost about $20 each for the ride.

The first km of the trail gets you blood pumping but after that it is a walk in the park to Finnigan’s Point. There is a beautiful wetland area with boardwalks that go on and on.

Boardwalks

There is camping at Finnigan’s Point but because we had an early start, we kept going to Canyon City…a distance of about 13 kms for the first day.

Hanging Glacier at Finnigan's Point

Canyon City consists of a log cabin and one cook tent. The weather was so pleasant everyone cooked outside. The cabins are for warm up and cooking, not sleeping. By the end of the day, there were about 35 people at Canyon City. Most of the group was on the same schedule as us so while during the day it was just the two of us, at the campsites it was mostly the same group.

Lush rain forest

We camped with eight Germans, eight Hungarians, and family from Montreal, a couple of doctors from Toronto, a Dad from Calgary with his nine year old son and two young 17 year olds from Whitehorse.

The cook tent at Canyon City

We took a little side hike, after we were all set up, to the actual Canyon City site. We hiked over the Tayia River suspension bridge to see an abandon boiler and other artifact from the gold rush days.

The day was about 13 km...cooked up some dinner and went to bed early with the sun still up.