“The side of this mountain will come down,” Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata said, surveying a collection of boulders hanging far above a dock that sees half a million cruise passengers in a typical year. “It’s just a matter of when.”
Claire Stremple, KTOOThe cruise ship berth directly below the rockslide is empty for the rest of the 2022 season. Aug. 3, 2022.
He pushed through some hemlocks on the ridge above town to survey the collection of loose boulders that hang far above the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad dock. Down there, in a typical season, half a million tourists meet their tour guides or board buses and trains. City-hired geologists say there could be a catastrophic slide here with little to no warning.There have been four serious rockslides on the dock since June.
The view from where Cremata stands on top of the slide path is stunning. A glacier-carved fjord reflects a jagged crown of mountains to the south. To the north are the town’s brightly painted, Gold-Rush era buildings. The port is studded with three huge cruise ships. Everything looks tiny below — people are just specks on the dock. A few small rocks tinkle down the slide.
The city could build a new dock, but officials say that would cost even more than a plan to reshape the mountain — a possible solution with a price tag in the tens of millions of dollars.The loss of ships has been partly voluntary — after the latest geotechnical report was released, the city assembly asked the railroad company that runs the dock to close one berth. The decision was unanimous, even though the assembly“We’re between a rock and a hard place.
Her buses used to wait right at the dock for passengers to get off the ships. That’s not happening now, since the remaining cruise ships are sending people ashore on small boats. “We’re happy to be open, we’ve got business and it feels good to be ringing up the register. But really, our sales are way down,” Cyr said, surrounded by bright watercolors, silver baubles and carved bone.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for a lot of years,” said Tyler Rose, executive director of human resources and strategic planning for the railroad.Rocks are still falling from the historic 2017 slide path on the left. Geologists say there’s risk of “catastrophic failure.” The smaller slide to the right came down in June. Aug. 2, 2022. Rose said White Pass identified a slide risk as early as the 1990s and started monitoring the area in earnest after a.
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