Monthly Archives: March 2017

Cusp Season

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Snow still blocks the road to the Fish Creek trailhead. Aki cruises on top of its crust while I break through. But there is a path of sorts busted through by past visitors. Unfortunately, they all had longer gaits than me so I have to stretch out to match their boot prints. Ahead, in the trees lining Fish Creek pond a murder of crows besiege a lone eagle. I can hear their racket over the sound of my boots crunching through frozen snow.

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We must be the first human-dog teams to visit this morning because the crows let us get close before stirring. I expect to find the carcass they fight over but no deer bones litter the wetland grass. Rafts of mallards have tucked themselves against the far stream bank, as if they needed shelter on this windless day.

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Two smells of spring hit me when I reach a section of beach washed of snow by the tides: mud and rotting seaweed. Feet away, the land is locked in the sterile hold of winter. But here the necessary work of decomposition already paves the way for summer growth and autumn harvest.

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It Doesn’t Make Sense

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Bald eagles are solo hunters. They don’t cooperate. They don’t like competition. Today, three eagles trying for herring off of Point Louisa spend as much time warning each other off as in diving for fish. I am not one to argue with Darwin, but I can’t figure out the genetic advantage of being so crabby.

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Harbor seals catch more salmon by working in a pack then they would on their own. Just when pink salmon enter Kowee Creek, two seals splash and crash dive, causing the fish to school up and swim straight toward two other seals. These sweet-eyed predators switch roles with the drivers after they have fed.

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Aki and I are walking on the snow-slick path with one of my oldest friends. Over the sound of a rising wind we talk about the clearance, during World War II, of Aleut villages. The Native Alaskan residents were relocated to backwaters of Southeast Alaska where they were left to shiver and starve. Somehow 90% of them survived the camps. Many of the survivors never returned to their homeland. Doctor Darwin, what is genetic advantage of treating people like that?

Bronze Breacher

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Snowflakes, fine as ash from an extinguished house fire, fall on the whale. They settle and then melt on nearby truck tractors, a screaming-red crane, and the concrete slab to which the whale is bolted. The city fathers promise that one day, the bronze humpback whale will breach over a summer garden. It will entice cruise ship tourists to walk a mile down the multi-million dollar sea walk, away from the Franklin Street jewelry stores and Tee shirt shops. But now, the whale breaches in a construction yard, as startling as a sunflower in Antarctica.

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Soft Surprise

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I should have donned snowshoes, not ice grippers for this trip to Gastineau Meadows. We climb a well-packed trail, our feet eighteen inches below the snow level of the meadow. Aki doesn’t seem to mind having her field of view so restricted. She never leaps out of the easy channel, just dashes up the narrow trail and back, stopping only to sniff and pee.

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It was twenty-two degrees F. when I made morning coffee and twenty-eight when we left Chicken Ridge. After such a night of cold, the water-rich meadow snow should have a rock hard crust strong enough to support my weight. That would grant us the freedom to wander into the least-visited corners of the meadow—the ones offering surprising mountain views. But my boots sink at least a foot when I try leaving the packed trail. So we stay trail-bound. At least I am tall enough to see the mountains standing like giants over the stunted meadow trees, the little dog, and me.

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Soft Ice and Silence

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Aki dashes between her other human and me, finding good, firm footing on the snow-covered lake. The number of parked cars near the trailhead led me to expect a crowd on the lake. But all who used the cars to drive here are skiing in the campground. That trail, set by a snowmachine over a paved road, offers little danger and only one view of the glacier. If the wind isn’t blowing across it, we usually chose the lake. Its trail gives you an unobstructed view of the river of ice for more than a kilometer and a half. We have only enjoyed the view for a minute before finding a patch of open water, apparently made when the snowmachine groomer’s roller punched through the ice.

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We ski on toward the glacier, looking for soft spots and finding none. Torn cloud fragments wreath Mt. McGinnis and Thunder Mountain. If the lake is groaning under its twenty inch thick blanket of snow, we don’t hear it. We don’t hear anything but Aki’s panting and the scraping of our skis over the slightly icy track.

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The groomer’s snowmachine approaches after we make the turn back to the car. After it growls past. a trio of skiers slips onto the lake followed by several more. I am not surprised. Like I have many times in the past, the incomers have waited for the heavy machine to test the ice before venturing on to it.

Crazy

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Crazy weather little dog. We just drove through thick snow flurries to Eagle River. Now, ten minutes after leaving the trailhead, sunlight touches the ski trail through the old growth forest. The trees, freshly burdened with new, wet snow, start shedding their loads. I want to write that they sighed following the release but only silence accompanied the cascades of snow. Aki is in hog heaven—a place she defines as having snow soft enough to roll in but still able to support her weight. I’m pretty happy too on skis that move smoothly down the trail and the chance to glimpse blue sky through the forest canopy.

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The trail takes us in and out of the forest and then onto a muskeg meadow spotted with haggard-looking spruce. Some of the trees are as bare a power poles. Long strands of goat’s beard lichen hang from the living ones. Snow clouds move in after we leave the meadow and whiten the little dog and I until we reach the car. Before leaving, I walk onto the Eagle River Bridge and spot of raven’s blackness soaring through a thick snow shower. Before the bird disappears into the riverside spruce, I snap two or three photos of it. But it doesn’t appear in any of the pictures that I uploaded onto my computer. That is no strange than the weather.

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Porpoising

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Aki needs some beach time so we head to the old Auk Village site. It is still snowing when we arrive. We are at the tail end of the storm that left a foot of white stuff on the old growth forest floor. The little dog and I move down a well-packed trail as wet snow and melt water drip from the trailside spruce. We are soaked by the time we drop down onto the snow-free beach.

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As Aki chases after her Frisbee, I scan the crescent-shaped bay for life. In addition to the usual confab of gulls, harlequin ducks, and crows, I spot a small pod of Dahl porpoise hunting just offshore. They, well porpoise: briefly break the bay’s surface then dip back beneath the water. It happens fast, too fast to see anything but backs and dorsal fins. Unlike their larger cousins, the whales, the porpoise don’t form a noticeable plume when they exhale. But their rolling through water shinning silver with storm light still gives me a thrill.

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Still Snowing

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After yesterday’s deep-snow struggles, Aki and I are exploiting the efforts of snowplow drivers and sidewalk shovelers to move easily around downtown Juneau. Berms of snow line the paths and roadways. It’s was not snowing when we left Chicken Ridge so the berms were dark with the sand and gravel used to improve traction for the cars. But it only takes a flurry of quarter sizes snowflakes to cover the mire with white.

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Before the purifying flurry, I could anticipate each of Aki’s stopping points because they were marked yellow with dog urine. The new snow covering has no apparent affect on Aki’s nose for she continues to drag me to a stop every few meters. On a metal set of stairs, the little dog throws on the breaks. She must smell the cat that stands still as a statute in front of the Tibetan pray flag house. Aki doesn’t see the cat or she would growl. She doesn’t like cats, even wee things like this. Later Aki will not see the brace of ravens huddled together on a snow covered flower box. But, after detecting my attention, they will fly away into the storm.

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High Centered

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Aki is stuck, high-centered a foot of new snow. Big, “Charlie Brown Christmas Special” flakes deepen the snow cover. Nearby, gulls and scoters bob in the three-foot swells about to slam onto a snow covered beach. The little dog gives me a patience look. She could be barking complaints about my trail selection. She could be whining. Instead she waits for the expected rescue.

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I want to explain that I took special care to stomp down the trail. But her face tells me not to bother. She understands. I lift up the little dog and carry her up the trail and over a five-foot deep berm thrown up by a truck when it plowed out the trailhead parking lot. When released, she rolls her face in the snow and starts to chew off the snowballs now clinging to her legs. I want to tell her that thanks to this winter storm, she’d struggle on any trail we used today. A ten-year victim of our fickle weather, Aki doesn’t need such reassurance.

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Back to the Cave

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It’s a white day: white skies, white snow following on a lake ice covered with more of the same. I’m back on the pilgrimage trail to the glacial ice cave. But, this time the little dog and her other human are here.

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Aki bounces through the new snow. Her humans use skis on the irregular surface. They are tools, not sporting equipment. Without them, we’d be slogging through the heavy new snow.

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At the glacier, Aki’s humans switch to ice cleats and use a frozen creek for access to the ice cave. On this day of flat light, I don’t expect to find as much beauty as on Friday when strong sunlight muscled its way through the thick glacial ice. But the cave surprises. In the softer light, I find fairy ice fractures, crystal clear against a background of blue.

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