The Silver Trail

If you’re in the Yukon and find yourself heading north from Whitehorse to Dawson, about 200km before Dawson, you’ll see a cutoff to the Silver Trail (Hwy #11). If you have the time I would STRONGLY suggest checking it out. It’s 112km one-way, which seems like a long way to go on a gravel road, but the payoff is well worth it.

The Silver Trail to Keno

The guide books will tell you there’s 2 ‘towns’ along the way – the first being Mayo which they say has ‘all the amenities’. Don’t believe this. We eventually found one restaurant (Chinese) and one gas station which looked closed and abandoned, but thankfully wasn’t. There are quite a few ‘historical’ buildings listed but all sort of what look like shacks. Still … if you’re into that sort of thing it could be interesting.

Gas Station in Mayo

After Mayo it’s another 61 km to Keno City. Now this is a cool spot. VERY tiny but it has a wonderful mining museum that spans 4 buildings! There’s a funky snack bar that’s open sometimes and there’s a campground behind the main museum building which is pretty basic but clean.

Keno City Mining Museum

Keno city

Keno Snack Bar

Main St Keno

The REAL treat is the climb to the summit of Keno Hill and ‘The Signpost’. This was erected in 1956 by a group of visiting scientists and it indicates the distances to far-flung places all over the world. The road to the signpost is 11km long and is accessible by foot or car. We drove up in our 27’ Class C motorhome and it made it … but the road can be pretty gnarly.

The view from the top is STUNNING … you feel like you’re on top of the world! There are several hikes you can take from the summit … but we were there in the middle of June and there was still patches of snow that we had to wade through so be prepared.