Skagway to Tutshi Dog Sledding

[Joy62]

Can anyone recommend whether we should take a tour to the Tutshi Dog Sled area or rent a van and drive on our own?. We have a large group (8 adults and 3 kids). I think it crosses the Canadian border so that might be tough.  The White Pass train ride is full, darn.  Also, any tour guides you would recommend. I've checked with a couple, but no luck.

Thanks!!!

[jerseygirl629]

My family and I (4 adults) rented a car from Avis (We were in Skagway on August 15th) and drove up the Yukon. One of our stops was Tutshi Dog Sled camp. It was $5 a person I believe, no reservations required, and no other groups were even there! We got to meet and hold 3 week old puppies, as well as a few other older puppies. They were doing dog sledding past a gate but we didn’t have enough time to do that as we were driving up to Emerald Lake. 
 

We did see a few tour busses along our journey who were making similar stops to what we were doing but unsure of what their companies were called. 

[udamom]

On 8/29/2022 at 11:25 AM, jerseygirl629 said:

My family and I (4 adults) rented a car from Avis (We were in Skagway on August 15th) and drove up the Yukon. One of our stops was Tutshi Dog Sled camp. It was $5 a person I believe, no reservations required, and no other groups were even there! We got to meet and hold 3 week old puppies, as well as a few other older puppies. They were doing dog sledding past a gate but we didn’t have enough time to do that as we were driving up to Emerald Lake. 
 

We did see a few tour busses along our journey who were making similar stops to what we were doing but unsure of what their companies were called. 

 Jerseygirl, we are planning to do this same drive in 2 weeks. May I ask you a few questions? How was picking up the rental car at Avis? With tendering off the ship now that the dock had the rockslide I am kind of worried it all could be a long process leading to not enough time on the Hwy.

We plan to stop at the Tutshi dog sled camp also. That sounds fun! 

What was your total drive time from Skagway to Emerald lake and back? (I'm assuming you stopped and took pictures at multiple places along the way and also went to Carcross?)

 

thanks for any info

 

 

[jerseygirl629]

On 8/30/2022 at 5:03 PM, udamom said:

 Jerseygirl, we are planning to do this same drive in 2 weeks. May I ask you a few questions? How was picking up the rental car at Avis? With tendering off the ship now that the dock had the rockslide I am kind of worried it all could be a long process leading to not enough time on the Hwy.

We plan to stop at the Tutshi dog sled camp also. That sounds fun! 

What was your total drive time from Skagway to Emerald lake and back? (I'm assuming you stopped and took pictures at multiple places along the way and also went to Carcross?)

 

thanks for any info

 

 

 

If you're on RC Ovation, be sure to get down to the area early to get a tender ticket. We got there around 7:30am for 8am tender ticket hand out and were number 21 in line; we got "Tender Group 2", though they seemed to be filling them and sending them off pretty quickly.

 

We docked earlier than expected and were off the ship and on the tender by 9:55am. We picked up our car at Avis at 10:20am (We walked from the pier drop off to Avis). A friendly tip - make sure you check your cars oil level before leaving the lot; that was an issue for us as the oil light went on about 10 miles into our drive, forcing us to turn around and go back.

 

After figuring out the oil issue (The staff insisted the car was fine) we were back on the road around 11:20am (A bummer, but, we still had plenty of time!). Our final stop was Emerald Lake and we wanted to ensure we had plenty of time to get back so we skipped some stops on the drive up and decided we would get to them on the drive back if we had time. Something to note - we experienced a ton of heavy fog at the summit, preventing us from taking in a majority of the views for about 10 miles or so. It was cleared up by the time we headed back, though.

 

The stops we did on the way there (Using Murray's Guide, and by looking at my photo time stamps) were:

 

Mile 22.9 - Scenic pull off right after Customs / Fraser with interpretive signs

Mile 23.2 - Scenic pull off

Mile 27.3 (Outhouses, would recommend skipping this as there are bathrooms at the Yukon Suspension bridge! lol.)

Mile 29.5 - Yukon Suspension Bridge (we spent about 20 minutes here)

Mile 43.6 - Tutshi Dog Sled Tours (we did General Admission and spent about 15 minutes here, wish we spent more though. Sooo cute! lol)

Mile 49.9 - Yukon sign

Mile 52.5 - Scenic pull off

Mile 66.9 - Carcross Desert

Mile 73.1 - Emerald Lake

 

We made it to Emerald Lake by 2:22pm (Ship Time - I noticed my phone photos went from a minute apart to an hour and a minute apart! Be sure to keep at least one watch/clock on "ship time" at all times for this! lol. The Yukon is 1 hour ahead of Skagway). We then drove back and stopped at the following

 

Mile 65.6 - Carcross Town (Mostly everything was closed, it was a holiday in Carcross)

Mile 59 - Bove Island Viewpoint

Mile 14.7 - Welcome to Alaska Sign

Mile 10 - Bridal Veil Falls

 

We returned the car around 5:00pm which was perfect for us, as we then had time to walk around Skagway. We were in line to get the tender boat back to the ship by 5:30pm; back in rooms around 6:00pm to get ready for our dinner at 7! 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by jerseygirl629

[udamom]

On 9/1/2022 at 9:28 AM, jerseygirl629 said:

 

If you're on RC Ovation, be sure to get down to the area early to get a tender ticket. We got there around 7:30am for 8am tender ticket hand out and were number 21 in line; we got "Tender Group 2", though they seemed to be filling them and sending them off pretty quickly.

 

We docked earlier than expected and were off the ship and on the tender by 9:55am. We picked up our car at Avis at 10:20am (We walked from the pier drop off to Avis). A friendly tip - make sure you check your cars oil level before leaving the lot; that was an issue for us as the oil light went on about 10 miles into our drive, forcing us to turn around and go back.

 

After figuring out the oil issue (The staff insisted the car was fine) we were back on the road around 11:20am (A bummer, but, we still had plenty of time!). Our final stop was Emerald Lake and we wanted to ensure we had plenty of time to get back so we skipped some stops on the drive up and decided we would get to them on the drive back if we had time. Something to note - we experienced a ton of heavy fog at the summit, preventing us from taking in a majority of the views for about 10 miles or so. It was cleared up by the time we headed back, though.

 

The stops we did on the way there (Using Murray's Guide, and by looking at my photo time stamps) were:

 

Mile 22.9 - Scenic pull off right after Customs / Fraser with interpretive signs

Mile 23.2 - Scenic pull off

Mile 27.3 (Outhouses, would recommend skipping this as there are bathrooms at the Yukon Suspension bridge! lol.)

Mile 29.5 - Yukon Suspension Bridge (we spent about 20 minutes here)

Mile 43.6 - Tutshi Dog Sled Tours (we did General Admission and spent about 15 minutes here, wish we spent more though. Sooo cute! lol)

Mile 49.9 - Yukon sign

Mile 52.5 - Scenic pull off

Mile 66.9 - Carcross Desert

Mile 73.1 - Emerald Lake

 

We made it to Emerald Lake by 2:22pm (Ship Time - I noticed my phone photos went from a minute apart to an hour and a minute apart! Be sure to keep at least one watch/clock on "ship time" at all times for this! lol. The Yukon is 1 hour ahead of Skagway). We then drove back and stopped at the following

 

Mile 65.6 - Carcross Town (Mostly everything was closed, it was a holiday in Carcross)

Mile 59 - Bove Island Viewpoint

Mile 14.7 - Welcome to Alaska Sign

Mile 10 - Bridal Veil Falls

 

We returned the car around 5:00pm which was perfect for us, as we then had time to walk around Skagway. We were in line to get the tender boat back to the ship by 5:30pm; back in rooms around 6:00pm to get ready for our dinner at 7! 

 

 

Thank you for the info! looking forward to this trip as I've heard the scenery is beautiful!