Located nine miles northwest of Skagway , the ghost town of Dyea
is the starting point for the famed Chilkoot Trail . The old
town site sits at the head of Taiya Inlet. During the Klondike
gold rush of 1898, Dyea was where miners began the long trek
into the Yukon Territory, and at its peak, the town provided a
temporary home to some 10,000 people. Two factors caused Dyea to
disappear: a devastating avalanche on Chilkoot Pass in April
1898, and the completion of the White Pass & Yukon Route
Railroad  in 1899. Just four years later, only six people lived
in Dyea. Little remains to be seen at Dyea except for the Slide
Cemetery, where 45 men and women who died in the Palm Sunday
avalanche of 1898 are buried. Walk through the forests that now
cover old Dyea to find a few crumbling buildings and wharf
pilings extending into the bay. It’s hard to imagine that this
was once Alaska ’s largest city. The town site is now part of
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park , and not far from
old Dyea is the trailhead fo