Skagway Tour Spotlight:

Skagway City and Summit Tour

Here is one of the stops on the Skagway City and Summit Tour! Bring your camera!

Back in the old days, people visiting Skagway either went on a tour to the summit or on a tour of the city. That was fine but one day, someone said to themselves, “Self, why not combine the city and summit tour together?” This proved to be a sound business decision because the Skagway City and Summit tour is one of the most popular tours in Skagway!

What the heck is the summit?

Many visitors aren’t sure what the “summit” part of the tour entails. Some don’t even know what the word summit even means. That’s okay. I am going to tell you. A summit is defined as “the highest point of a hill or mountain.” The summit part of the summit and city tour does not take you to a summit. Confused? So am I.

The summit part of the city and summit tour refers to the highest elevation reached along the Klondike Highway. You stop at the “summit,” which is 3,284 feet in elevation. Some people call this the White Pass Summit but that’s wrong because the White Pass Summit is where the train goes. The summit and city tour is a bus tour.

Some people call it the Klondike Summit but that’s not only wrong, but it also doesn’t even make sense. The Klondike is 500 miles north of the “summit.” Look, we are just going to call it the summit and leave it at that or we are never going to get to the tour spotlight.

City and Summit Tour – The ins and outs

The first part of the tour is all about the city of Skagway. Interestingly, Skagway is not a city. It is a First Class Borough. The only First Class Borough in Alaska. This is why Skagwegians are known for being very sophisticated and classy. Come to think of it, why is “city” even part of the tour?

Your tour takes you through downtown Skagway, which is known as the Historic District. It’s not much of a district because it’s only about 6 blocks long. The name of the street is Broadway but it’s actually quite narrow. When you break all of this down, it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The second part of the tour takes you to the summit, which we already determined is not a summit. You will stop at a few interesting, scenic places along the way, including:

• Pitchfork Falls – This waterfall doesn’t really look like a pitchfork at all. One small part of the waterfall kind of looks like a normal waterfall. I guess naming it Waterfall Falls would have been kind of redundant.
• Bridal Veil Falls – Every State and National Park in America has its own Bridal Veil Falls. Probably because every waterfall kind of looks like a bridal veil. It’s not a creative name but the waterfall is very pretty and you will enjoy this stop.
• The Summit – I’m not even going to talk about this anymore.
• The Scenic Overlook – This overlook needs a name. Something Creative like Plummeting Lovers Drop. That hints at a mystery.
• The Old Bridge? – I have a question mark here because this is a new possible stop since the new bridge was just completed in November. The State of Alaska built a large parking lot for buses so I hope it becomes a stop on the tour or that was a big waste of money.
• The Town Overlook – This stop overlooks the town. Again, not the most creative of names but I’m just used to it at this point.

One more stop

You also stop at the Gold Rush Cemetery on the City and Summit Tour. People that lived in Skagway during the Gold Rush are buried here. Actually, they’re not because a flood washed all of the bodies away. What can you do when nature strikes? Not much.

Final note

Come to Skagway and take the City and Summit Tour even though Skagway isn’t a city and the summit isn’t really a summit. Maybe stay a while and help us name some things. Perhaps we should rename it the Skagway Borough and Other Stuff Tour. That has some pizazz. Either way, you can also combine the tour with the train. We creatively named it the White Pass Fraser Train with Stops Tour. Good name. Descriptive.