The weather forecasters promised sun this morning and calm skies. After a long stretch of rain and cloudy conditions, the little dog and I were ready for the change. We headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier as soon as the sun rose.

            There was a scattering of clouds in the mountains around Mendenhall Lake when we arrived. Twenty feet away from where we parked the car, an adult bald eagle groomed itself while perched on top of a covered area where people sometimes marry on high summer days. The eagle ignored me as I had to come quite close to grab poop bags from a government dispenser. I wasn’t sure why the big bird tolerated our near presence. Maybe it was too lazy to care.

We walked down to the lake. No wind blew, not even a slight stirring. Without wind the lake surface was a perfect mirror reflecting the surrounding mountains and even the few remaining clouds in the sky. But confusions of wafer-thin ice melted slowly under the rising sun. Early winter can’t be too far away.