Rain is winning the precipitation war today,  All winter it battles with snow for control of our lives and forest. The snow creates and the rain reduces until we are left with ice free lakes and muddy trails. Then, with the help of the freezing air, snow reclaims its kingdom. It could happen this afternoon or tomorrow or next week. Until then Aki and I must find enjoyment on forest trails like this one circling Auk Lake.

Aki can handle the icy path but I couldn’t safely get out of the car without pulling ice grippers over my boot soles. Ice made slick by rain offers no purchase for bare lug soles.  I bring a camera but have little hope of capturing beauty with it. Days like this turn it into a story telling device. There are hints of stories here like tiny deer tracks recently cut into rain softened ice and those of a dog who foolishly tested the weak lake ice.  Along the lake edge branches of half submerged spruce, now freed of snow by the rain, could be vertebrae of dragons soon to be freed from an icy prison.

Snow brings peace to the forest as it softens familiar shapes and brings colder temperatures to silence moving water courses. When snow rules we go deep in the woods, where the wind can’t reach, and enjoy a whitened church. Rain brings movement and energy and, I have to admit, excitement to our rain forests. Today the trail crosses a series of dark rivulets cutting a noisy path through the snow covered ground. Water droplets collect on every tree branch overhanging the lake then weaken the ice when they drop.

Approaching a larger stream crossing I notice that the trail crew used curving spruce trunks for the bridge. The young spruce once grew along the lake where they reached out over the water before turning up to the sun.  The trail designer must have harvested them after seeing in their arching bodies the reverse line of the trail where it crossed his creek. Last week’s snow hid the bridge. Today the trees’ gentle beauty and the designer’s genius have been revealed by the rain.