Today I discover what its like being used by seals. Aki and I are walking along the lower Mendenhall River under full sun. Ducks and geese hug the waters on the river’s other shore. It’s hard to see them through light glittering off the river. A Great Blue Heron croaks then rises from the shallows to fly closer to Douglas Island. Then a Belted Kingfisher flutter flys over the river, its wet feathers glistening in the sun.

A seal surfaces nearby and follows us down river. Figuring he is just bored, I concentrate on tracks in the sand. In this area  transitioning from the world of water to that of land, every rock and half buried stick supports islands of shell fish. Small tufts of beach grass colonize high spots that might stay dry during moderate tides.  Green shoots mix with season’s dead stuff to promise spring. Aki’s tracks join those of a gulls and another canine. Normally she would show more interest in the larger dog like tracks, sniffing carefully where the animal leaped then pounced on something. The gait and track pattern suggest a wolf but I can’t believe one would expose himself on this well used portion of ground. Aki also ignores a snail moving deliberately across a patch of smooth sand. It leaves behind a long furrow as it makes for a tiny island of mussels.    

Reaching the turn around point we spot a small raft of ducks right up against the beach. One cackles a warning and they move into deeper water then head up river. I’ve forgotten friend seal so am confused when the ducks zigzag their way up the current. After reaching midstream they paddle quickly back to shore. Even though we are never closer then 75 feet to the water, the ducks move back into midstream when we they hear my boots crunch on beach rocks.

Things become clear then the seal surfaces to encourage their return to shore. At this point I stop walking and watch the ducks swim to midstream not far from where the seal floats. They spit up. Most head across to the other shore but one, singing out a song you would call sarcastic if it came from my mouth, turns upriver. Perhaps knowing that the one brave duck will fly at the first charge, friend seal doesn’t follow.  Just when the duck seems clear, another seal bursts out the water and grabs it. The two seals tussle on the surface then disappear. The nervous muttering of the onshore ducks stops and we all spend a moment in silence reflecting on what just happened.

Aki and I turn into the sun and head toward the car. Rounding a headland we see the  Glacier reflected in the incoming tide, two geese flying across its face. One of the remaining ducks begin the sarcastic song as we disappear from sight.    

The morning’s snow fall brings fragile beauty to this trail. Flakes gather in the crevices formed by branches and twigs on trail side blueberry bushes. They will fall as wet drops to the ground as the temperature rises or fly off in the next moderate breeze. Further into the woods snow, filtered by the old growth canopy, falls on mossy green ground. I want to morn the inevitable destruction of magic but opt instead to be in the moment.

The melt is more advanced when we reach salt water, Alders lining the beach stand bare. Snow still covers the beach except where an incoming tide has washed it clean. Something or someone around the next headland frightens a raft of ducks to flight, They hit the water just offshore of us. Then a gang of gulls burst into a mewing song and take briefly to air before resettling on the beach. They mutter for a bit, perhaps about foolish ducks and this unending winter. Standing still Aki and I watch the ducks and Shaman Island now whitened with fresh snow.

I listen to the faint surf and stain to see the outline of Portland Island through the screen of snow. I wish I could freeze this moment in time—turn it into a film to be explored by all five senses. Then water drops fall on me from the overhead trees and I notice how cold the wind is on this exposed beach. Abandoning the moment completely I think of what to freeze in time. It would be great to capture the joy at the birth of my child or love’s first kiss. I could study them, even walk through them again again. Returning from exploring an interesting scent, Aki stands where the trail leads away from the beach. She of few memories, seems to recognize the peril in my fantasy. She is the queen of living in the moment. I follow her into the woods and the moment.

Gray days like this leave me hungry for the drama of opposites. I find a feast on this walk through an old growth forest and in the river meadow country it borders.  Only contrasting smells excite Aki. Catching the scent of a squirrel or fresh animal scat sends her dashing down the trail, ears flapping, tail a metronome.  For me its all visual.

Last’s night snow starts us off. It coats the green spruce forest to within a few hundred feet of sea level. This sharp demarcation of light and dark pops when shafts of low angle  morning sun spot the mountain side. In the forest fresh snow dusts young evergreens and fills open spaces in the yellow green tree moss.

A crest of blue shows through the clouds when the trail leaves the forest and crosses a muskeg meadow. It’s the first blue I’ve seen in days. The sound of geese rising in panic fills the air but there are none on the muskeg. We push on to the meadowlands bordering Eagle River to see what the excitement is all about. Until now the forest has been silent.

I figure out what happened to the geese on our first glance of the river. A flood tide now covers all the bars where geese like to hang.  They are gone but three ducks fly across our vision and a single seal watches us for a few seconds before dropping silently beneath the river surface.

On this open space we can appreciate the battle of sunlight with cloud cover. I have to cheer on the sun but know the clouds will win. Some filtered rays do manage to reach to river water and turn it a pale gold.

The river has covered our usual trail across the meadow with five feet of water so we have to back track. But first we stand on a high spot and watch the tide rob this meadow of the beauty. A field of snow dusted yellow beach grass disappears beneath dark water.

 

“Why risk it Aki?” She who is better equipped to transit slick surfaces appears to agree so we turn our backs on a chance to visit the old gold bearing Glory Hole and head for home. We have been taking risks since we left the house this morning. Now I am wondering why.

After watching Everton easily defeat Blackpool in a FA cup match we headed out the front door to find black ice overing the street. I have ice grippers but decide to risk a fall so I won’t have to take them off when we reach dry pavement. Our warm overcast weather continues but we can still see the Mt. Juneau summit. That changes as we drop down into the Evergreen Bowl and start up a very icy trail running along Gold Creek. A snow storm will catch up before we reach home.

Even with ice grippers I slip a bit. The trail becomes more treacherous after passing through a grove of alders and starts its climb to the flume trail.  On this steep serpent of ice the grippers fail but I pull myself upward by grabbing trail side willows. If one breaks I could be in trouble.

I don’t have time to question the wisdom of this adventure until we reach the Flume. The snow covering it offers a safer tread but we have to pass under several avalanche chutes  to gain the Perseverance trail.  It should be safe now that the snow on Mr. Juneau has stabilized a bit. Still, I am a bit unnerved looking up at chutes still choked with recent avalanches. Here I envy Aki’s ability to stay in the here and now.

We join the Perseverance trail just before it becomes a long ledge cut into a steep hillside. One slip here and I’d slide for more than 100 feet.  The stretch is covered with high mounds of snow left by the tail end of an avalanche that must have flow over the trail to the valley below. It snapped off the tops of trees growing on the downhill slope. I think of turning around here until seeing the prints of a child’s boots on the trail. Rather than judge the child’s parent I question my caution and continue past the ledge to where the trail becomes a road winding up the creek valley.

Below the creek runs free but across is another chute overloaded by very recent avalanches. Here the trail widens into a gravel road covered with hard crusted snow. The downhill slope drops hundreds of feet to the creek and I am reminded of the young man who fell to his death down the slope a few years ago. Still we move on. I want to see Ebner Falls crashing down into the creek and then reach the place where the valley opens up.

I made this trip in winter once with two friends. One turned back at this spot rather than cross a section of ice covered trail. I pushed on with the other friend and we were awarded with the sight of a wolf flashing across the trail ahead of us. Today, after reaching an area where my ice grippers fail, I turn back. The promise of more beauty or even a wolf is not worth the risk. 

Without boot cleats this trail is impassible. It is worst where it runs along a long shelf cut into a steep hillside. Great gray stalactites of ice cling to the uphill side of the trail. Water seepage flows over them and then onto the trail, making it even slicker. Most of the columns cling to the face of flat granite rocks embedded in the hillside. A squatting spruce appears to be giving birth to an ice column in a cavity left when the soil eroded from between its spreading roots.

I chose the trail because it provides access to broad tidal meadows often frequented by Canada Geese.  We find the first meadow empty except for one raven that sings us a song while flying to the other side of the river.  After Raven leaves we reach a small grove of young spruce. They are pioneering a point that pushes into the river. Half of them lay on their sides as if jerked out of their natal soil by a giant gardener. He left long sections of their young roots exposed so I help myself to some. When peeled and carefully split lengthways they can be wrapped like manila rope to bind things together. I use these split spruce roots to secure the carved piece of a halibut hook to the flat piece that holds the pointed barb. The Native Americans of the Northwest Coast used the hooks to catch 100 pound flat fish. Mine just hang on the wall.

Passing the tumbled spruce we drop onto large tidal flats now exposed by the ebbing tide. Aki dashes about, drunk on so much open space. She, who lives on a mountains side really appreciates this desert flatness. We walk along ways out then turn around to see the Herbert Glacier forcing its way through a wall of snow white peaks.

The flats are as empty of life as the tidal meadows so we turn back. Just before climbing up to the icy trail we hear a large flock of geese rising up from across the river. They fly across it and head to the place where Aki and I had been 30 minutes before.  We lose sight the flock when they land on the flats. Still, like the raven, they gave us a parting song.

Even though the town wraps around it, the Wetlands receive few visitors who are not carrying shotguns. There are a few well used dog walking trails that skirt the area but most is empty ground. For Juneauites it is just something to glance at during the morning compute from the Mendenhall Valley bedrooms to the SOB.  (That’s the local name for the State Office Building. Juneau visitors shouldn’t expect the sound of sadness to reach then as they enter the building.)

Back to the Wetlands, where the road noise from Egan Expressway fades very quickly as you walk toward Gasteneau Channel.  Soon into a walk only startled Canada Geese and transiting airplanes will raise the decibel level above a whisper. The whole area can flood during high tide so we always keep a tide book in the car to time visits.

The start of this day of the walk promised spring like weather but delivered gray skies and a chilling wind. We should be in the thick woods by the glacier where the day’s 40 degree temperatures would not have to fight with wind to set the tone. Instead we are crossing a slick patch of ice formed on the Wetlands above the high tide line. Down channel a sunrise streaks the sky with strips of gray and weak orange light.

Aki cruises right over the ice but I must do the tundra shuffling slide or crash to the ground. Even with legs slightly apart, feet parallel, weight evenly distributed I almost fall when my left boot slides over a slight rise in the ice.  I am forced to concentrate only the ice and ignore a Bald Eagle that vocalizes it resentment at our presence on this hunting ground. The slow speed of transit forced by slick ice has a blessing. It gives me the time to appreciate reflected sunrise colors that almost set the ice aglow.

Once off the ice we cross wet grasslands where each dead blade, brown, tan or straw yellow, has been pushed down flat by the recent heavy snow. In the middle of this destruction sits a weathered driftwood tree that has rested here long enough to earn badges of lichen. It lays on its side so that its circle of shallow roots are at a 80 degree angle to the ground. One foolish spruce seedling grows between the skyward pointing roots.  Growing above salt soaked ground, the spruce has no chance of being more than a bonsai decoration to welcome the geese and ducks that will soon be resting here on their north bound migration.

I have mixed feeling about this isolated spruce striving to grow on its precarious perch. It’s is a life wasted but history is full of honorable fools who joined the forlorn hope. I’d admire this tree for its courage and determination if it had a soul. Instead I admire the life force it represents and the sower, nature, that imprinted all spruce seeds with need to root and grow where ever they land. They affirm the preciousness of life. So too, do the birds who each Spring fly thousands of miles to nest.  Tree, birds, man; the need to live drives us all.

Aki is whimpering now so I look down to see the wind bending back her ears and flattening her facial fur. When I stop she holds up a paw as if it to dry it in the cold wind. We’ve reached the deep channel of Duck Creek that cuts us off from the rest of the Wetlands so I grant Aki’s request and turn toward the Sunny Point bluffs jutting into the Wetlands. We walk along them to the car.

Aki finds a long strip of snow perfect for her diving then rolling game. My boots crunch with each step after I join her there sending seven Canada Geese breaking for the sky.  We return to  grasslands when the snow strip ends. Here a paper thin layer of ice lays like a sheet over the tussocks of flattened grass. Only frozen salt water has such flexible strength.  Several things had to happen at the same time to create this. This fragile sheet of ice would not be here if the last night’s high tide hadn’t manage to cover the grass just as the night’s temperature dropped enough to freeze it into this thin white covering.  I wonder at the purpose of covering beaten grass with a beautiful translucent sheet when we hear the nervous cackling of worried ducks huddled 50 feet away. They burst from cover and fly deeper into the wetlands, necks stretched out, willing more speed. Aki looks away as if embarrassed by their cowardliness. If she would understand I would tell her that they are only driven by the will to live.