With autumn grayness dampening its visual beauty, I use taste to deepen my connection with this mountain meadow. Unlike the bear, wolf, and deer, who need to pack on pounds before winter drives their food underground, I can spend time and energy looking for berries on bushes past their prime that may only yield up a handful of fruit. Aki would rather stay on the trail with its promise of other dog encounters but follows me onto the wet muskeg.

Even though it takes a half an hour to gather twenty blue berries, I pop handfuls of them into my mouth; taste a tart confusion of flavors—a muddy mix of tannic and sour with a lingering sweetness. Another half hour of pick and wander refills my hand. I eat these berries one at a time after feeding a soft one to Aki. She doesn’t ask for another. Some have the sourness of died-back grass. Others produce an explosion of the tannic moisture that gives “muskeg” its name. One berry tastes like sugar in a bowl and I wonder if it grew next to the sweet smelling bog candle orchid that still manages to flash a little beauty on this sea of fading beauty.

The Anchorage to Juneau jet was encased in dark clouds when the 10,000 foot warning chime sounded. I’d been thinking about lessons learned and relationships deepened during writing school at the University of Alaska. After hearing the chime, I looked down for dark shapes that could confirm we were over Lynn Canal and not skimming mountain tops. Seeing nothing but gray, I turned my life over to the pilot and his hi tech gear and tried to nap. It’s the only sane way to fly to a rain forest town crammed between glaciated mountains and a strip of sea.

Aki and my partner waited outside the security area. My partner smiled a warm welcome and the little dog squeaked and jumped when she spotted me. This morning Aki and I hiked up to Gasteneau Meadows even though it rained and clouds obscured the mountain tops. I couldn’t find flower blooms, wild animals, or even birds. Beauty hung in rain drops that clung to down facing pine needles. That’s how it is sometimes in Alaska. You learn to appreciate the comforts of friends, dog or human, and beauty where offered even when the rain falls and clouds block the peaks. You learn to appreciate the difference between the warm rain of summer and the punishing stuff that will come in October. In fall, you look forward to the crispness of winter and search the old growth for its rich mix of clam and drama.