Aki dances around as I prepare for this afternoon’s expedition. God blessed her and all dogs with a weak short-term memory. She seems to have forgotten yesterday’s windy walk through the woods.

Soft, sparse rain falls as we walk onto the moraine. A fog ghost rises from a grove of yellow leafed cottonwoods and climbs up the spruce green wall of Thunder Mountain. Recent weather has put me in an Old Testament kind of mood so I pretend that the rising white form proves cosmic acceptance of our sacrifice during the just ended wet summer. (Juneau set a seasonal record for rainfall). But I know better.

Years in Alaska have taught me that bad weather never guarantees future stretches of good. Last summer’s monsoon season didn’t produce any cosmic credit that we can cash for a dump of snow followed by weeks of winter sun. I also know that a good stretch of summer sunshine creates a debit that can only be paid while wearing rain gear or arctic gear to block the icy Taku winds.

   Aki doesn’t worry about cosmic imbalance or even the rain. She bounds around the moraine playing with a heard of water dogs that gallop up to her with wagging tails and goofy grins. I urge her to let them go and move on to the shore of Moose Lake so I can enjoy the reflection of the blue iced glacier underlined with a jagged line of yellow cottonwoods. We reach it just in time for a few quick photographs of the ice reflected in gently dimpled lake. Then, a deluge destroys the reflective power of the water. I wonder why this won’t earn us any points.