The Klondike Highway opened in 1978, completing a route gold-rush stampeders walked on foot in 1898. What took prospectors three months to traverse — Chilkoot Pass or the murderous White Pass trail — now unfolds in a two-hour motorcoach ascent along asphalt switchbacks that climb 873 meters in under 30 kilometers. The road traces the narrow-gauge railway corridor blasted through granite by 35,000 laborers, a project that killed hundreds and bankrupted the British syndicate that financed it. A Skagway Yukon bus tour crosses the international boundary at Fraser, British Columbia, 42 kilometers north of tidewater. Coaches stop at Tormented Valley, where Sitka spruce gives way to subalpine fir, and again at the Carcross Desert — 2.6 square kilometers of glacial silt dunes, the smallest desert mapped by geographers. The highway parallels the original Brackett Wagon Road, a toll route charging two cents per pound in 1898. Remnants of the old grade remain visible below modern pavement. The summit of White Pass sits at 873 meters, straddling the Alaska-British Columbia border. On clear days, the view extends south to Lynn Canal and north across boreal forest into Yukon Territory. Coaches descend to Emerald Lake, a meltwater tarn colored by calcite sediment, and Carcross, a village of 289 residents where the Caribou Hotel has served travelers since 1898. Some Skagway Yukon bus tour itineraries include the suspension footbridge spanning Tutshi Canyon, 61 meters above the river. The international crossing requires passport inspection. United States and Canadian customs officials board coaches at Fraser; delays average 15 minutes but can extend to 45 during peak cruise weeks. Return passage reverses the route, descending past Bridal Veil Falls and the remains of camps where stampeders wintered in 1897. Motorcoach tours operate daily May through September, weather permitting, with morning departures reducing border wait times and afternoon light favoring photography on the return leg.