Part of a continuing saga...you can find the previous parts here:
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

The next day, while our sore behinds were still recovering from the bicyling adventure we took, we arrived in Skagway. It was a cloudy and over cast day to begin, and we were also the only boat in town at the moment, so the whole place was deserted pretty much at first.

Interesting thing we learned during the course of the day. LIke 60% of the town were seasonal workers from all over, it was like some giant Great America theme part, and when tourist season was over most of the people boarded up everything and left. I can only imagine how creepy that place gets around December.

We had signed up for Rock Climbing and Rappelling in Skagway, so we got off the boat early in the morning and started the long walk down the pier looking for our "guide". One of the more unusual things about skagway is a lot of boats tag the rock face that's next to the pier. I mean, there was stuff on there from as far back as when I was in high school.

Anyway we found our "guide" and climbed into the omnipresent ford econo van's that every town seems to have and drove out to a trail on the side of the road. Then we got out and took this really cool little hike to where the rock wall was. After donning helmets, rock shoes, and a harness that emphasized my bulges we were ready to scale the craggy peaks. Since there were two guides, only two could go at a time. What happens is they tie a rope to your harness and basically keep that line taunt the whole way up, so that way if you fell...well you wouldn't fall. I'm sure you get the idea, you'll see the ropes in the pictures. Also, it's how you get down....basically once you get to the top and touch the chain, you lean back. Yes...lean back and they lower you down. I had a hard time with that part...leaning back from a perfectly solid rock wall isn't really in my programming.

After everyone gets a turn or two (depending on whether they want it or not) then the group heads up to the top to rappel down the side of the rock wall. This personally scared the crap out of me, but really it was a lot of fun. Jen had already been repelling in the past so she wasn't really excited about it. But I'm a cheap date :)

Once done, they gave some people the option to either rappel again or climb more based on what you wanted. Or you could get out of the stupid shoes and harness if you were so inclined. Then it was a quick hike back and a short trip to the boat. On the way Jen got some recommendations from the guides on what to do and where to go during the afternoon. It turned out to be great advice. After we got back to the boat, changed clothes a bit and freshened up a bit we headed back out to the local tourist lodge for a map of the hiking trails around the area.

We decided to go hiking on a trail called Lower Dewey, and boy I have to tell you it was pretty damn cool. Forget paying for expensive things, some of the coolest stuff you can do is free. But don't let the short lenght fool you, the real bitch here is elevation. You go up like 500 feet and it's a bear. Now here's the weirdest thing. So we get to lower dewey lake finally, and where sitting there in the middle of nowhere....total forest...but somehow I've got full bars on my cell phone. I literally sat there for 10 minutes talking to my sister in the middle of nowhere. It was a little surreal.

Then we made a big decision...we decided instead of heading back to go around dewey lake. This was both smart and dumb. It was smart because it was cool...but it was dumb because it was hella hard. Once side of dewey lake is nice and large, with paths the size of bike paths that are obviously cared for and maintained. The other side of dewey lake however is not, the path get's down to about a foot wide at parts (when you can even see it) and it takes you over rocks, boulders, and just some down right crazyness. It was really cool :)

After that we headed into town, had a few beers and then back to the boat to collapse. It was a lot of fun, totally free, but really kicked my butt. Some better shoes would have really helped.

next time, glacier bay...

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Our honeymoon pictures can be seen here, and a slideshow is available here.