Skagway to visit NIki and Sherri

Christy and her beloved brother!!


Wednesday, July 9^th

Chris and I flew to Skagway to see Niki and Sherri last Sunday. We were in a Caravan, Cessna’s single engine turbine, and the pilot let me fly right seat. Waterfalls off our right wing.. He confessed that I had more turbine hours than he did, and all he wanted to talk about was my Meridian. The approach into Skagway is into a blind canyon, requiring a 180 degree turn to land. We had 30 knot winds from our tail, so we had to execute the U-turn in a tight pattern, as we descended to 500 feet AGL. Very exciting! And here is a pic on short final to land...

We met Niki and Sherri early on Monday, and Chris was extremely happy to see her brother again. We hung out all day, with Niki taking us to the cemetery, Reid falls, and showing us several of the sights that he and Sherri have seen before. After lunch, they had to board the ship, and Chris and I headed to the train for the ride over White Pass, (notice the ship in the background of mainstreet)

the original route

after gold was discovered here. The Klondike Gold Rush has quite a history, and is one of the lectures that Niki gives on the ship he is on now. This is a picture at the top of White Pass, the breaking point for the "gold-rushers"...

Then on Tuesday morning, we returned to Juneau by high-speed ferry. We saw one whale, several Dall Porpoises, multiple eagle nests, and had to zig-zag into Auke Bay between the fishing boats hauling in their nets. There is one place where a rare sea-lion, bordering on extinction, gather each year to calve the young....