Exploring Whitehorse [260622]

(Posted 260730) We took a break from driving today to do some hiking and exploring in Whitehorse.

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Tom woke up before 8 a.m. Monday morning with his mind spinning about Nikon things again, realizing that we still hadn't tried two "possible fixes" we found online for lenses that won't focus (which, granted, sounded like long shots for our situation): upgrading the camera firmware, and physically cleaning the data contacts (which look perfectly clean).

We got up around 8:30, and in addition to our normal morning routine we rotated some laundry around (folding and putting away some items that had dried during the night, and hanging some damp items up on the rack that we could now extend over the bed) and got a laptop out and started downloading the latest Nikon D7500 firmware over the low-speed Starlink connection (with the 24 MB download seemingly taking forever to complete).  Not surprisingly, neither the new firmware nor cleaning the contacts had any effect on the non-focusing new/used lens. 😢

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We drove 14 km back into Whitehorse to the Miles Canyon Trailhead, with the intent of doing some hiking.  We had read that the small parking area right by the trailhead had few spots and was very narrow, and that large vehicles should park in the wider section of the turn before it, which we did.  The advice was not wrong: even if a spot had been free in the parking area (which one was not) we would have had great difficulty getting in/out of it - and probably would've had to back out (uphill) once we realized there were no spots, since there really wasn't extra room for a 21' foot vehicle to turn around.  This was our first view of the Yukon River, by climbing over the little hill by our parking spot.

The gal at the Visitor Center yesterday had told us that the hike out to Canyon City on the Lower Canyon Trail was pretty, but that some folks don't like it because "it's narrow with steep drop-offs on one side" which made Tom (with his moderate fear of heights) a bit nervous.  We figured we'd make a final trail decision when we got there.

To access either trail you have to cross the Yukon River via a wooden suspension bridge (another item on Tom's list of "least favorite things").

At the split for the Upper and Lower Canyon City Trails it looked like Upper went up into the trees and would have questionable river views while the Lower went down along the river itself, so we opted to take the Lower Canyon City Trail.  From the narrow part of the river you could get a good look at the basaltic lava rock that makes up the canyon walls.

An early side-path led to an almost-island with a little bench on it.

While the trail did eventually get narrow in places, and also followed an edge with some drop-offs, neither ended up being something to be concerned about when compared to a lot of our usual hikes.

After about 50 minutes we reached Canyon City - which was something of a disappointment.  Maybe we're spoiled, but a name like "Canyon City" evokes images of towering stone spires/columns reminiscent of skyscrapers or some such thing.  Canyon City, however, is just the site of an actual Klondike Gold Rush-era city, the only remnants of which are some depressions in the ground, a supposedly lush portion of vegetation where an old manure pile used to sit, a reproduction tramway car, and a few "tin can middens" (aka "old garbage heaps" 😉).

We turned around and began the hike back.

When the trail branched again into the Upper and Lower Canyon City Trails, we decided to take the Upper back "for variety".  That was probably a mistake, because a) it had a lot more ups and downs and b) as we suspected, it had practically no views of the river.

When we got back to the suspension bridge, we decided to hike along the Rim Trail for a bit.

A narrower constricting point in the canyon made for some interesting, swirly current patterns in the river.

The trail kept going, but after about half an hour we had seen enough and returned to the bridge and the trailhead.  The total hike ended up being 3.81 miles over 2:20, with 747 feet of elevation change.

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We headed further into Whitehorse, stopping at the sign on the edge of town . . .

. . . before continuing on to the SS Klondike National Historic Site, where the centerpiece is the SS Klondike II (the largest vessel to travel the Canadian portion of the Yukon River) which is currently undergoing restoration.

A moderate rain started falling while we were reading the outdoor displays about how life on the river has changed over the years, so we were glad that most of them were under shelter.  We were confused for a little while because a couple of the signs indicated that in addition to the SS Klondike, the Site was also supposed to house the historic (1934) Atlin Barge - which we didn't see anywhere.  We eventually realized that the Barge had been turned into the observation platform from which we had taken the pano above.  (And looking at the current building materials, we're guessing that it has undergone one of those "restorations" where very little of the original vessel remains.)

While reading the displays, we also got the shipping quotes from Adorama for returning the lens:  $69.17 to ship from Whitehorse, YT or $9.65 to ship from Fairbanks, AK.  Needless to say, we requested a shipping label for shipping from Fairbanks!

Afterwards, we decided to return to the Visitor Center to watch the film they had on the paddlewheel boats, which we hadn't watched the day before.  We parked on the back side this time, and got to see some murals that we didn't last time.

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Tom lubed the dump port in the Visitor Center parking lot before we headed back to camp, since we were intending to use the dump station on the way in (since the single station might be too busy in the morning tomorrow for us to do a full flush).  The rinse hose at the dump station was technically threaded, but the threads were so worn that they wouldn't thread on to our pressure reducer so Tom ended up using our old leaky hose anyway.

Back at camp, Tom grabbed a quick shower while Christine made a batch of Instant Pot Lasagna for our upcoming boondocking night dinners.  Then we cooked up a dinner of grilled potatoes and burgers, with salad.  After dishes, Tom replaced the leaky male connector on our black water hose with the part we bought in Chetwynd; the process was much easier than the internet had made it look - hopefully it holds, and doesn't leak! 🤞

For the rest of the evening, we used the low-speed Starlink to finish and post blog #9 (Tom) and trip plan (Christine).  Bedtime was around 11:20.

Tomorrow we'd be leaving Whitehorse and continuing our journey westward.