The day broke well on Chicken Ridge, announced by the slap of Sunday’s paper on almost dry ground. “Where shall we go today, little dog?” Aki ignores the question and heads for the kitchen, nails clacking on the hardwood floor. Her tongue lifts water from her dish when the first blast of wind driven rain slams into our house. Heavy raindrops appear to atomize when each strikes our neighbor’s metal roof. Wind carries the resulting vapor toward Gastineau Channel.

The poodle mix withdraws to the back of her kennel as I carry out the prep work for a walk in the woods—fill water bottle; grab camera, leash, pop bags, fleece for Aki; don rain gear, insulated Elmer Fudd hat, boots. She joins me just before I open the front door and we fight our way through wind and rain to the car.

We park at the edge of an old growth forest with a trail that leads to the sea. Aki dashes into the woods where it is calm and even free of rain. A gentle breeze tosses ferns that grow on the roots of a wind-tumbled spruce. Reminded of the power of wind, I look to canopy to see if the tops of the century old spruce trees bend. They don’t. Deep in the woods we hear the trickle of water in swollen streams but not the crack and creak of trees struggling in a serious wind. Still, Aki walks with caution; quick to jump when a stray alder leaf flutters toward her.

We follow a trail that snakes around broad circles of spruce root wads ripped from the ground when 100 miles an hour winds toppled the tree they once gave life. I’d like to be in the woods when such a wind drops giants but each time a storm brings them, common sense convinces me to hunker down on the ridge and ride it out.

Even on the bordering beach, the great trees shelter us. Gusts break over the tops of the tall spruce to darken the otherwise calm water with small, spiraling ripples. Some rip off isolated alder leaves that twirl and spin to beach. Apparently feeling exposed, Aki dances back into the woods. I follow, my mind filled with a memory of Cara Dillon singing “Donald of Glencoe.” I think of that exposed Scottish glen and the coast between Oban and Fort William so open to the wind. Is the sister to this Alaskan wind scouring the Highlands? “Ponder that little dog, those coastal Scots can’t even duck into the woods for shelter. The dog ignores my admonishment. We motor through the woods. She doesn’t doddle when asked to hop into the car.

I thought that three days of heavy rain washed all the smells off this trail but Aki manages to find lots of work for her nose. I walk, head down, parka hood up and listen to the simple tattoo of raindrops on my hi-tech rain gear. No one else shares the wet joy with us. At least it’s warm rain—falling through 50 degree F. air so I am safe wearing cotton. In a week or two, when the temperature drops to hypothermia range, I’ll be hiking in wool and synthetics.

At the edge of a mountain meadow the rain stops and the sun returns. A rainbow arcs over Mt. Juneau. I know it is nothing more than sunlight shinning through saturated air above the mountain and not a sign of better weather. In minutes we are back in the rain.

I am cheating Aki, at least that’s what she thinks. We have to squeeze in a quick walk this morning because I have a workshop for the rest of the day. To keep her somewhat clean, I take her on the Twin Lakes paved walking path. Normally, this would send the little dog over the moon with joy because it is a top dog walk path on the weekends. But today, it rains. The wind sweeps the path clean of everyone but my stubborn self and the little, low to the ground dog.

Twin Lakes were formed by the construction of Juneau’s only four lane highway. It cut off two bays from Gastineau Channel. On the map, the highway forms the straight line of a poorly drawn capital letter, “B.” The path outlines the twin swellings to the right of the upright. The lake waters magnify truck rumblings from the highway and no forest blocks the rain or the sight of highway traffic. It has little to offer but light and a view of the Douglas Island mountains rising above Gastineau Channel and the highway. But these, Aki and I have to ourselves.

I shouldn’t be frustrated. Last night’s rain showers ended at first light and I can see the ridges on both sides of the Gold Creek Valley. Aki has traded sniffs with some dog friends and hasn’t growled at anyone except for an innocent looking longhaired dachshund that eyed her in fear. The sun is the trouble. To be more accurate, it’s the broken clouds that parse out the sun’s enriching rays. They roll back enough to release a shaft of light onto a patch of alders, all covered with dead leaves but not the solitary cottonwood tree that, in full sun, would be a yellow candle against its mountainside of green spruce. When sunlight does reach the cottonwood, I am busy bagging Aki’s scat. Poop in bag, I raise the camera and find the sun gone. I move up the trail. Sun shafts, like lightening, can’t strike the same tree. Whipping around, I see the cottonwood’s again jewel yellow leaves dull as the sun moves back to the alders.

It doesn’t get any better until we reached the overlook where we meet a stay-at -home dad shoehorning in some alone time before his child gets out of school. He gives me a little lecture on cloud formation (helpful) as out of the corner of my eye I spot the a shaft of sun turning a cloud of brown-yellow willow leaves gold. I ignore the show and listen. We part without enriching either’s day and I head back to Chicken Ridge. Multiple shafts of light escape the clouds and light up the view I had at the overlook. If I had done the right thing and sat with the man, had conversation, we both could have enjoyed sun light up the deep gorge and its still green covered walls, might have become friends. The teacher managing the clouds gives me two consolation prizes—a slash of light across the creek valley and an illuminated waterfall.