Taking this route was Aki’s idea. I wanted to walk down to the channel, which was sparkling with silver light when we left the house. As we reached the street that offers access to the Perseverance Trail, Aki just broke left. Letting her think it was my plan all along, I followed her.

The little dog trotted past the colorful Craftsmen houses on Basin Road and over the old trestle bridge. The stream, still swollen with rain runoff, ran high and loud beneath us. Only a scattering of yellow leaves clung to their trees. The meadow that slants down the lower flank of Mt. Juneau looked like a faded carpet. I found myself photographing the bare balsam poplar trees that rose above the flume trail on the Mt. Juneau side of Gold Creek.  I enjoyed some limp thimbleberry leaves, the yellow color of their leaves enriched by a blink of sunlight. But soon they too will fade and we will have reached the season for admiring shapes and textures instead of color.