Aki doesn’t act like this is her 14^th birthday. She is planted on a very slippery ice, waiting for me to drop a bag of her poop into a bearproof garbage can. After I return, she and my wife walk off the ice and onto a snow free Basin Road.

            In less than a block ice and slick snow again covers the road. It will be this way as we travel up the road up to Gold Creek crossing and then walk onto the newly reopened Flume Trail. It’s been shut down for the last two years for repairs. The last time we walked it in winter, twenty-footlong icicles hung from the bottom of parts of the flume. We see none today because they finally patched the leaks.

            The flume carries water from the Gold Creek Valley to a tiny hydro plant near the Indian Village. The plant can continue to deliver electricity to Juneau town if landslides stop the main power lines.    

       Aki walks along the flume trail until we reach a patch with ice, rather than snow. Then, she throws on the breaks. My wife and I try to talk her into continuing. But she won’t move. Frustrated, I look above her and see forty knot winds pushing cloud of snow off the sides of Mt. Roberts. If the wind shifts, Aki and her people might get the big chill. The little dog is picked up and carried down the now slippery trail. Think of this as an early present little dog.