This calm gray day spawns reflections in lake and soul. While Aki wanders after squirrel sign I study this reflection of a glacier erratic. There is wonder in how it arrive here on the edge of a beaver pond. The retreating Mendenhall Glacier abandoned it 100 years ago. Since it has witnessed progress by men and beavers against a backdrop of Thunder Mountain.

It watched men and beaver fight for water rights in the pond. The rock measured progress in the battle by how much of its surface stood above the water.  For years the beavers built their dam high enough to flood out the walking path. Then, men would remove a the top few feet of the dam to open up the trail. The beavers, being tenacious night workers would soon rebuild. They had the advantage until men installed a submarine conduit that allowed water to pass under the dam. Now excepts on storm days the erratic stands exposed.

We find other signs of man’s progress deeper in the woods. Near another pond Aki pees on the caracus of a 60’s era Volkswagen, reduced by weather and scavengers to bare frame and struts. A modern dinosauer trapped in mud as if dropped here like a rock by the retreating glacier.