Absence is the theme for this walk around False Outer Point. I stay away from here during early summer when the chance of catching a king salmon from shore draws big crowds. Then bon fires burn on this beautiful beach and a community of fishermen form on the point. Today, with the kings now up in the spawning streams, only one car sits in the trailhead parking lot.

Aki loves this trail and I have to hurry down it to keep up with her and she charges ahead. She slows where we reach the crescent beach, now half exposed by the outgoing tide. The signs of man are everywhere but I can’t spot the owner of the other car. Someone has fashioned a spiral shaped labyrinth out of smooth beach stones but we don’t try it.

When Aki stops to drink from a runoff stream I scan the ocean for life and at first see only timber covered islands and the glacier beyond. No whales, porpoise, ducks or geese appear. Then a large dog salmon performs several leaps out of the water, ending each with a happy splash. It’s as if he wants one last celebration before the fight for spawning space in the redds.

A noisy gang of crows occupies the point. After chasing off the ravens and eagles that usually hang out here, they have little patience for us. A couple fly low over me but don’t bother with Aki. By rounding the point we reach a pocket meadow still moist from the retreating tidal water. Surrounded by barnacle incrusted rocks, only salt tolerant plants can survive in the meadow. I can’t remember seeing one like it on our other travels. 

The sun breaks through briefly to light up the golden yellow rock weed covering portions of the beach nearest the water. Only artists that can recreate this color on canvas have a chance of conveying the beauty of a Southeast Alaska beach to others.

Around the next headland I spot two people sharing a conversation in a flat grassy spot between trees and the beach. As we approach I can see their camping gear. When they spot us, the campers begin to pack things away. The woman, at first standing straight and upright, bends her torso like a dancer taking a bow. Her hair forms a blond cascade that bounces as she stuffs a sleeping bag into its stuff sack.

The campers move quickly enough to raise suspicion.  Are they embarrassed by being caught acting out what seemed like a good idea last night at the Imperial Bar? More likely they are hurrying back to town for hot breakfast and good coffee. 

They’ve camped just beyond a trail junction where Aki and I take a path leading into the woods so we don’t meet them. I stop from time to time to pick blue berries, which gives the campers time to almost catch up. The possibility of them doing this causes me to walk faster until we leave the main trail from a seldom used route that will lead to the car. The campers, who must own the other car parked by the trailhead must also know the way for I hear the man’s voice rising above forest bird song when we reach the road to home.

Arriving back at the parking lot just before the campers I am relieved to have avoided the forest equivalent of an awkward elevator moment—the one where you are in an tall building’s elevator with someone your barely know that works for your employer.  Stuck in a moving box you first wrestle with whether to initiate a conversation and then after giving in to that temptation, the effort to maintain it until the elevator debouches one of you. The conversation is always about the weather. I can only talk about rain for so long. 

In the northern rain forest you don’t measure high summer by heat but by the progress of salmon and the ripeness of berries.  We must be there because eagles and ravens line trees along salmon streams while king and dog salmon fight for space on the spawning redds.  Along this trail through the old growth woods ripe blue berries confirm the season. I harvest my first while Aki waits just down the trail.

The berry, grown on a bush fertilized by decayed leaves, tastes more bitter than sweet. I decide to leave the rest to ripen and move down the trail. After this first act of harvest I only have eyes for plants that bear fruit rather than beauty. Aki, wanting to reach the beach ranges far ahead while I stop often to check for ripeness.

The tide is well out when we reach the beach. A eagle complains loudly then flies over our heads being pursued by a single diminutive crow.   An army of other crows fill the beach side trees and range over the exposed tidelands searching for food. Knowing they will actively resent our presence I lead Aki back into the woods to further measure the progress of summer.  

We Americans make too much noise celebrating Independence Day. In Juneau it started last night with an evening of amateur pyrotechnics that ended with a professional display at midnight. Firework rockets exploding over Gasteneau Channel appeared to set the clouds on fire while echoing canon fire off the walls of Mt. Jumbo. It sends Aki into a frightened confusion that only ends with the last bomb blasts.

This morning there was more noise made by the downtown parade — Scottish and American marching bands, honking trucks, grinding mine vehicles, and the whine of two cycle miniature car engines driven by Shriners in funny hats.  Not being a big fan of noise for noise sake, I think we would be better off celebrating the holiday reading the Declaration of Independence from England, signed July 4th, 1776.

Looking for some quiet time Aki and I drive out the road to a salt chuck meadow. Seeing two not before noticed boards laid seductively across a road side ditch I park the car and lead Aki across the portal. A green field awaits beyond that sports creamy arctic cotton, purple lupine and spikes of the hooded ladies tresses orchids. There is silence here. No cruise ship horns, helicopter noise, airplane roar reaches. We wander about, crossing a barrier of spruce trees then entering another meadow dominated by an orchard of crab apple trees just now setting fruit. Nearby Aki finds a large patch of orange colored moss that has been disturbed here and there by a foraging bear. She  rolls on to her back and squirms with pleasure on the soft moss.  I’ve never seen her look happier.

Following animal trails we make our way to a gravel path that leads over a small coastal hill to a pocket beach. Large ferns crowd the trail but we have no problem making headway.  Two eagles break from the trail side spruce when we approach then we hear a series of low warning whistles from a marmot. The big cavia stands erect and as gray as the granite rock he stands upon. Rounding the corner we spot his mate looking out from the door of their tree root home. He issues one more shrill warning whistle and then both marmots go to ground. Only then does Aki decide to bark, bless her. 

Skirting the beach we take a lightly used forest path to a pocket beach with plans on continuing on to another cove. It’s just high tide, which will block further passage for another 20 minutes so we find a comfortable outcropping of rock to wait.  I doze then awake to see a seal break the surface just off shore. We watch him slowly approach our perch, rise a foot or so out of the water and then sink under the water. They are such curious critters. 

Natural beauty should move people to a respectful place. Great beauty can you place you content in God’s palm. Today Aki and I are surrounded by landscape compelling enough to move anyone except the person who fired 30 bullets into this trash can and then set it on fire.

Following Aki across the pedestrian bridge over Montana Creek I let the roar of  creek waters ease me into the woods. The creek is high from snow melt and recent rainfall.  A half a mile in Aki urges me to take a small trail down to the creek side. Here years ago a large Sitka Spruce tree, uprooted by high water, fell in a perpendicular line across the creek. It’s top fell just upstream of a glacier erratic, which anchored it.

Stream floods delivered sand and gravel to fill in behind the massive trunk and now to is a three foot high dam that salmon must leap over to reach the spawning redds. I’d like to return and watch silver salmon, in their spawning colors, gather in the pool just down river from the log and then take turns launching themselves over it. We might also see a bear on the log waiting to pick off a flying silver with its jaws.

We don’t need to wait until spawning season to find beauty along this creek. Here is a crisp hoof print just left in the sand by a deer. There lies the print of a bear that I examine until Aki obscures it with her muzzle. Just the way simple rain drops gather morning light on this wild cucumber stalk now setting flowers can make forget the damage of man.