This morning, low sunlight shined through frost covered leaves on Chicken Ridge. I knew it would be lovely on the moraine where colder temperatures and lack of wind would have allowed shards of hoar frost to cover the grass and willows. The same low light would bring out the details in the glacier’s ice. People and dogs would be thick on the trails, drawn out by sun and all it dazzles. I tried to resist going there, like a fat man tries resisting chocolate cake, but gave in to the promise of all that shinny beauty.

Aki nosed, chased, and sometimes cringed through the parade of dogs. Her other human and I took pictures. Half-inch thick ice covered most of the lake but we found open bays that reflected the glacier and its consorts, freshly white with snow. Joining a parade, we walked to Nugget Falls with the sun at our backs, watching the glacier grow in size with each step. If not for its more famous neighbor the huge waterfall would be a tourist attraction. Here it mainly provides the summer sound track for watching glacier, terns and gulls. I hear it on fall walks over the moraine and even on cross country ski adventures until the cold of deepest winter silences it.

Having sated our hunger for gaudy beauty, we turned to the sun, now so strong we can only look down at the trail. When the trail changes direction so the the sun shines from our right we see a frost covered bouquet of rose shaped galls formed on the ends of willow branches. The surrounding hoar frost melted quickly in the sun but these galls were just emerging from shade. The sun sparkle in the hoar frost, shinning enhanced by the melting until only moisture glistened on the willow galls and prismatic drops of water clung to the willow’s dead leaves.