Tombstone YT

Day 19

7/9/26

 Mosquito count: few and far between

Woke up this morning to some sunshine and only partly cloudy. The wind seems to be minimal today. Yesterday was a bit breezy with a cold wind. 

On the advice of my brother Paul, Holly & Guy (who we met in Jasper) and Lenore last evening we are headed to Tombstone Territorial Park today. It is only a few miles out of our way toward Dawson City. Everyone has raved about how beautiful the area is and there are some short hikes with some great views. So that’s the destination today. It will be a long day to get there. 7 hours of driving without stops…. took about 9 hours due to construction.

We turned off the Alaska highway just out of Whitehorse and headed north (like the Yukon River) to Dawson City. They call this The Klondike Highway. Along the way there are a few lakes to admire. Fox Lake is a long skinny lake. 

Montague Roadhouse. One of 52 stagecoach stops between Whitehorse and Dawson actively used in the early 1900’s. Offered lodging, meals and stables for the stagecoaches. Took 7 days to complete the route. 

Carmacks. Only bridge crossing the Yukon between Whitehorse and Dawson. 333 highway miles. Remember this name..it’s important to the Klondike Gold Rush. Mr Carmacks had a trading post here in the 1890’s.

Five Finger Rapids. This is the only place on the river that is not Class I. This is considered a Class II rapid. The guys who are racing the Yukon 1000 are not worried about this rapid. Back in the day of steamboats using the river this rapid was a huge obstacle.

Road Conditions. We are getting in the vicinity where you start to get warned about “bad roads”.  At some point the roads deteriorate with frost heaves and pot holes. No matter which highway we take from here there will be bad sections of roads. Let the fun begin!

Construction. We’re in the first big construction zone of the trip. The asphalt is stripped down to a wet dirt road. Next up washboard. Pilot car. Our timing was good… rolled into the pilot car just leaving. Were the tail end. The sign says is could be a 15 minute wait. 

Out of the construction. Now it’s pothole dodging, slow hazard markings, and wavy bumps with dips to the side. Some of the bad areas are marked with orange cones. Keeps you alert that’s for sure!

Now we’ve come to the second construction zone. This time with a 10 minute wait + and then 18 minutes behind the pilot truck. Long one!

Third construction zone. No pilot cars just a long time on a wet dirt washboard road. These conditions made for a long drive today.

We finally reached the intersection of the famous Dempster Highway. We depart the Klondike Highway to head north on the Dempster road for 45 miles to Tombstone Territorial Park. If you were to continue on this road you would end up at Inuvik in NWT (Northwest Territories) on the Mackenzie River Delta and ultimately the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk. The top! It is a “thing” for motorcycles and cars to go all the way there which is another 87 miles on top of the 456 miles just to Inuvik to cross the Arctic Circle. And it’s also all gravel. Then you return on the same road. One way in… one way out. We are not going all the way up there!

First Rock Chip. Only about 20 km into the nice packed dirt road a big heavy truck came flying by and… ka-ching! Rock chip #1.  Good sized one but luckily high to the left. The road has had enough rain the past few days (weeks) so we’re not eating dust at least. We did bring chip repair kit so we will be using that soon to see if it works.

Mr Wawe is in Tombstone! Just sighted at the campground. Haven’t seen him since Atlin… day 12, a week ago.

We could not get a campsite at the campground so we parked at the entrance where there seems to be a Muster Point. Looks good to us. A bit later another van pulled up beside us. They told us that they camped here earlier and they were unbothered. So we’re good for tonight.

Our plan tomorrow is to hike to a viewpoint a few km up a trail to Grizzly Lake. From there we will backtrack down to the Klondike Highway and travel to Dawson City.