Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007, Yukon

We dry-camped at Carmacks in the lot next to a service station where we had the propane tank filled. We have really been using the propane, keeping the furnace going in the evenings and overnight, as the temperature has been in the 30's at night. We keep the motorhome temperature around 67 during the night. Carol had read about finding agate rocks near Carmacks, so we stopped at the place were they were supposed to be. The sign by the highway said to hike about 1/3 of a mile to a clearing. We did not see any in the clearing. The sign also said geodes might be found about 1/4 mile beyond the clearing. We located a trail and must have hiked close to a mile up a mountain. It got steeper and steeper, and there were a number of switchbacks. John, who was quite a distance ahead of Carol, decided it was not safe to go any higher. The picture was taken by Carol, and it was much steeper up ahead where John was climbing. As we traveled down the trail, we noticed a place where some digging had taken place near the trail. This was probably about 1/4 mile from the clearing. We had not noticed it going up. Well, the view from up on the mountain was great; and we needed the exercise. What we

thought might take an hour at the most took way over two hours. We arrived in Whitehorse early afternoon. One of the few things we did not see on our first visit to Whtehorse was the SS Klondike. It is one of two sternwheelers that have survived, since they discontinued using them in the mid 1950's. The other is the Keno in Dawson City. The SS Klondike was the largest sternwheeler built. Passengers and freight came to Whitehorse by rail from Skagway, AK. They would then transport miners, their families and freight by riverboat to Dawson City and other locations.