The Klondike Highway climbs 3,292 vertical feet in 14.3 miles between Skagway's waterfront and the White Pass summit, retracing the 1897–98 stampeders' route without the avalanche risk or vertical ice walls. Engineers blasted the two-lane road through granite in 1978, paralleling the White Pass & Yukon Route railway that opened in 1900. The grade averages 7.8 percent, with 22 named hairpin turns carved into slopes where packers once abandoned 3,000 horses in a single winter. Today the Skagway Yukon extended summit drive tour follows this corridor north into Canada, crossing the international boundary at Fraser, British Columbia, where the highway enters Yukon Territory proper. Operators stop at Bridal Veil Falls, a 400-foot plume fed by Pitchfork Glacier melt, and the Yukon Suspension Bridge, a 190-foot pedestrian span over the Tutshi River canyon installed in 2010. The route passes Pitchfork Falls, Dead Horse Gulch—named for the stampeders' pack-animal carnage—and the ghost settlement of Log Cabin, a 1942 Alaska Highway construction camp now reduced to foundation timbers and rusted machinery. White Pass itself sits at 3,292 feet, straddling the Alaska–British Columbia line. The alpine tundra supports dwarf willow, Sitka valerian, and moss campion; black bears forage on soap berries in late summer. The Canadian border station at Fraser processes vehicle traffic daily from 0700 to 1900 Alaska Daylight Time, aligning with the tour operators' departure windows. Beyond Fraser, the highway continues 98 miles to Whitehorse, Yukon's capital, but most Skagway-based itineraries turn back after the suspension bridge or a photo stop at Carcross Desert, a 2.6-square-kilometer glacial silt deposit claimed as the world's smallest desert. The Klondike Highway corridor remains the only year-round road link between Skagway and the Yukon interior. Winter closures are rare but occur during avalanche-control work; the Alaska Department of Transportation monitors 14 slide paths between mileposts 2 and 14. Summer visitors share the road with commercial trucks hauling freight to Whitehorse and recreational vehicles bound for Dawson City, 535 miles north.