In Skagway, at the height of summer, hundreds of tourists wait in line – some patiently, some less so – to return to their cruise ships. But they can’t get there on foot. Instead, they wait for shuttles or small, orange boats.

Jeff Jarvie, of Riverside, California, experienced the rigmarole this week.

“It’s disappointing, because it’s a ship with so many people,” he said. “The water taxi takes a whole, like, process.”

But that process is in place for good reason. Skagway’s largest cruise ship dock, known as the Railroad Dock, has been off-limits to pedestrians since the summer of 2022. That’s when multiple rock slides tumbled toward the dock from a ridge to the east.

No one was injured. But the slides damaged infrastructure and resulted in dock closures that took a major toll on th

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