Tombstone Mountain Hike

Day 20

Tombstone Mountain to Dawson City

7/10/26

Mosquito count: few…yet again

We started our day with a 5 mile round trip hike up to a viewpoint of the Ogilvie Mountains including Tombstone Mountain. In the beginning, for the first half, the trail was riddled with tree roots. Like veins on an old persons hands. A little muddy here and there between roots due to all the rain lately. The last 1 km was a stony steep path to the first ridge top. Instead of long switchbacks it took the wiggle route… just short and curvy. We had a view looking west toward the sawtooth edged mountains. Unfortunately it was a hazy morning. We were told by locals it was actually smoke from fires in NWT to the east. With the ridge of high pressure warm weather has moved in and the wind is coming from the east.

It took us about 4 hours round trip to complete our hike. On the way up we only saw 5 people but on our way down there was a pretty steady ant line of hikers. It seems that most had backpacks and were headed in for a few days. If you are backpacking into Grizzly Lake (7miles) you have to have a permit to camp at their designated sites. They are actually quite improved campsites in the middle of the mountains. They have tent pads and a covered cooking area with tables and portapotties to use. They helicopter the outhouses in and out of the tent sites. The cost for these sites is $18 CDN. We were told the reservations open in March and book very quickly!

Wishbone Couloir looking across from our viewpoint.

As we were approaching Dawson suddenly the gold placer mining dredge tailings were everywhere. Back in the early 1900’s they quickly switched from gold panning to machine dredging. The tailings were everywhere in the Klondike River valley and up every creek for miles. The amount of ground that was dredged was mind blowing. Heaps upon heaps of rock piles. It made Montana gold mining so puny. I thought I’d seen dredging tailings but not on this level.

We took a drive up Bonanza Creek where the first gold was discovered to see the Dredge #4. It was used until 1950. As it stands it is the largest wood hulled dredge in North American. They shipped it down the Yukon, assembled the parts and the rest is history! A Parks Canada employee explained the whole process to us. It was fascinating. All of this about 120 years ago! So much incredible history in Dawson. And the tenacity of the people that walked and steamboated their way here to look for gold is daunting.

Gold was first discovered here in 1898 on this creek by a man named Carmacks… the little town we drove through yesterday. His discovery started the Klondike Gold Rush. Within two years thousands of people had arrived and all the other businesses to support it too. All the claims were staked.

The Guggenheims owned 90% of all the claims by 1907. They became the Yukon Gold Company. They had a town called Guggieville.

Present day there are still actively gold mining. They use heavy equipment trucks and dump it into a sluice onsite.

After the dredge visit we drove down into Dawson City. For the most part everything has been kept historical on the outside (by law). Currently the population is around 2300. At its highest population it was 30,000. This lasted only a few years in 1898. By 1920 it dropped to 900. All the claims were owned by big companies.

It is an interesting community to walk around and see old original buildings left to nature and then the historic ones that have been preserved.

It seemed like a quiet town on a Friday night. We walked around quite easily with no traffic… cars or people. Then we decided we should go to Gertie’s to see the Folly show. They have 3 shows every evening going from G rating to R as the night gets later. The first show being G was singing and can-can dancing. It was about 40 minutes. The gaming tables and machines were busy but we got the last chair to watch the show from the balcony. It was entertaining. And this is where all the visitors and maybe half the people who live here are working. The place was busy with eating, drinking and gambling as you would expect.

We stayed at a campground just 2 km out of town. We wanted to park in the Visitor Center but when I went in to inquire about overnight parking the gentleman at the counter said they do not allow it. Well guess what? The next morning before our walking tour there were 4 vans parked there… obviously overnight. So much for asking!