Rain and slick-ice trails must be keeping everyone else out of the Gold Creek valley. Aki doesn’t appear to notice the solitude. For a dog with sensitive nose and an inquisitive nature like her, this mid-winter thaw is magic—as stimulating as Disneyland or an overturned meat truck. Nose impaired and cocooned in waterproofs against the rain, I look inward, rather than out today.
We cross a young forest growing over the rubble of hydraulic mining. A century ago, I couldn’t walk over the wasteland created here by men moiling for gold. The old growth forest they destroyed fed hunters and gathers and offered a peaceful place for the rest. But the gold extraction efforts that destroyed it provided jobs for the people in the nescient Juneau town. Without them, there would be no Juneau. Without them, I might still be living in California. I guess I owe them a debt but refuse to share responsibility for their destructive acts.
First appearance of sunshine after days of snow. Aki and I spend the best part of it wandering over the moraine. Normally, I wonder why hikers block out natural sounds with ear buds. But today, I wish the air would fill with a Townes Van Zandt song, maybe “For the Sake of The Song” or “Tecumseh Valley,” and then a Corelli concerto. Aki dances down the snowy trail like she hears her own rich sound track.
We reach the river a little damp from melting snow. With the 14 mm lens that I usually bring to the moraine, I could share a picture of the scene at the end of the trail: the snow-banked river making a sharp, green-colored bend beneath the forested slope of Mt. McGinnis. Pearl-colored clouds obscure a swatch of the mountain while a blade of sunlight outlines one of the mountain’s sharp-edged ridges. I have a telephoto zoom that only allows me to pull chunks of beauty from the scene. But, if not for the lens problem, I might not have noticed a little world of forest and sky trapped in a shrinking patch of open water on the fast moving river.
The appearance of bare pavement on Chicken Ridge didn’t surprise me this morning. Yesterday a warm, wet storm melted our beautiful blanket of snow off the ridge. This morning I hung up the snow shovel and took the little dog to one of the North Douglas trails.
A large raft of goldeneye ducks and scoters move nervously away from shore when as we reach the beach. Behind them a rainbow arcs up and away from Shaman Island and then fades to gray.
The day’s last surprise comes on the ride home when we spot a lone humpback whale feeding near Smuggler’s Cove. It is rare to see any whales this time of year. All the fertile humpbacks are in Maui or on their way to that breeding ground. But on a December day a year or so ago I spotted one in Smuggler’s Cove. Today’s whale is too far away to photograph and only shows itself briefly each time before disappearing like the rainbow into the gray. But like the lone wolf tracks, each plume of vapor it expels provides proof that this place is still pure enough for wild animals.
Walking with Aki 