A forest of flowers crowds around the last house on Basin Road. It’s the one you pass just before the wooden trestle bridge. I welcome this offering of random color today with the clouds hanging so low into Gold Creek Valley that I could climb into them on the Perseverance Trail.

I’m alone today for Aki hikes with another dog out by the glacier. It’s a chance to discover whether she keeps the animals away on our walks. Yellow monkey flowers line this trail to the clouds. They take shelter from the rain beneath leaves, attached to their mother plant by a thin fiber. I’d expect a strong breeze could knock them to the ground but they thrive in this wind tunnel of a mountain valley.

Leaving the main trail I move into a thick forest where we often see sign of deer and bear. A squirrel passes silently in front of me then I am alone with the sound of Gold Creek the only thing breaking the silence.  No chittering, eagle complaints, or song bird melodies sound above the stream— a moist but silent dessert of sound. Maybe  all the birds are out by the glacier, hanging with Aki.