I Heart Music Festivals

Atlin was a total shitshow, but in the best possible way. I had a great time there! Unfortunately most of that ironically does not include music, as the friends I was hanging with didn't want to spend much time in the grounds, but it was still great. I did a lot of partying and met a lot of cool people. Atlin is a beautiful town; the scenery there ranks as one of the most beautiful settings in the world. It's set on the shore of Atlin Lake, which is flanked by beautiful, snow capped peaks that are spread apart by wide valleys. Really a kick ass place to camp, let alone have a music festival. It's a shame it's so remote, though. There's only one highway that leads in from the north, about two hours from Whitehorse.

Before I indulge in the festival too much, I should write a blurb about my ferry ride to Skagway and subsequent drive. I caught the ferry from Haines and 1:45, and was in Skagway an hour later. I had a nice wait at the ferry terminal, watching two Grizzly Bears poking around the shore below. The ride was pretty scenic, but cloudy. Skagway didn't appeal to me. I had heard lots of bad things from a lot of people about how touristy it is, due to the cruise ships, and they appeared to be right. It's literally jewelry shop after jewelry shop after jewelry shop. I was like "no thanks", and booked it right out of town. The Klondike highway was beautiful, but as I was in a hurry to get to Atlin, I didn't take any pictures. Another awesome point of the day was when the border guard let me through without having to pay duty on the beer I bought! I rolled into Atlin around 6pm, and found Terry and Molly right away. They were already drunk, I proceeded to catch up.

The festival was really well set up. It's not huge, I would guess around one thousand people attend, maybe a little more. There's only one stage so you can't miss a band while seeing another one, and the beer garden has a great view of the stage. The camping is set between the lake and the festival grounds, one for RV's and across the street is the tent city. I opted for the simply route and slept in my truck. It was actually pretty comfortable, but I'm sure being drunk helped that a little. I didn't have a program so I can't remember the names of the bands I saw, but most were pretty good. A couple of the bluegrass bands were a little slow paced and boring, but the late night bands were epic! One ripped James Brown until midnight, a great crowd pleaser. After the beer gardens shut down at 1am a party would start in the RV camp ground around a big bonfire, and some of the musicians came out and jammed, which was pretty cool. I ended up hanging out with the guitarist of the band that ripped James Brown, he was a pretty solid guy. The last night I was a machine and ended up partying until 6am and full daylight. I'm now a little under the weather.

So tomorrow I'm off to Dawson City to start another road to Alaska!