Category Archives: Aki

Troll School

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P1140347On this straight trail through a green tunnel of alders, my mind wanders from thought to thought like Aki wanders from spots of scat and pee. Through a break in the green wall made by a deer trail, I see an enormous boulder in the moss covered troll woods. Hemlocks surrounded it. Another hemlock grows straight out of the glacier erratic’s top.

P1140359 In my imagination, the isolated tree becomes an ancient troll teacher, his mossy bark transformed into a warm beaver coat. He leans on a cane made from a bear’s leg bone. The little trees around the rock turn into young trolls, their stomachs swollen with salmon head soup push out against their green sockeye salmon skin tunics. It’s raining so they wear caps made from inverted mushrooms. Unrestrained by science or access to the Internet, the old troll is free to pull answers for his student’s questions from the air.

“Teacher, where did the great school rock come from?”

“It fell from the pocket of the giant whose footprints became our lakes after they filled with water.”

“Teacher, who cut the grove in the rocks under our waterfalls?”

“The giant’s bear friend, when he sharpened his claws.”

“Teacher, why do the salmon gather each summer in the deep pool beneath the waterfall?”

“The giant sends them to us so we will have food to each and skins to wear.”

Aki, shocked by this heresy or unable to see the trolls, grows restless so we slip out of the troll woods beneath a tree dotted with eagle scat and cottonwood down.P1140354

Looking for a little drama

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P1010611As we round False Outer Point I notice the incoming tide, normally as stealthy as a submerging seal, splash over near-shore rocks with as little regard for silence as a surprised seal lion. Fog ghosts move quickly across Smuggler’s Cove. In minutes they become stuck in a hillside spruce forest where they will melt away as the day warms.

P1010617I look for drama, a flash of yellow warbler or the plume of a surfacing whale but there are only crows, crabby if their harsh calls mean anything, and one immature eagle that floats to its cliff top roost.

P1010641Thankfully, there is rain to dimple the sea and slick rock tide pools. It wets a midden of pulverized mussel and clam shells so they sparkle under Aki’s feet. The shower adds the drama that I seem to need on this mid-summer morning.P1010628

Carry Peace From the Mountains

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P1010587I get funny notions when walking in the mountains with Aki. On this image-rich meadow, I wonder whether it will transform me, just a little bit. Will the resin smell of pine and mountain hemlock hide in my hair; the insects, bubble bee, dragonfly, water bug leave faint marks on my soul? Will my laugh at the sight of the little dog galloping back with her frisbee spice the words I speak to the folks at the hospital, where I will visit as lay chaplain later this afternoon? Certainly the peace I take from the walk will help me sit quietly with the lonely or frightened as they begin to heal.P1010583

 

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Only to Share the Beauty

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P1010548Yesterday the booms of fireworks would have swept over this mountain valley. The false colors of starbursts would have humbled the yellow marsh marigold and the reddish berry flower. Today the flowers shine without competition, as do the water drops clinging to grass and broad leaf plants. A parade of dogs, children, and people move past us on the narrow boardwalk trail. Aki and I step off the trail to let them pass, even the guy talking to his girl on a cell phone. I want to eavesdrop—-to learn if he shares the beauty of the place or just asks her to pick up a half rack of beer at Kenny’s Liquor. I could almost forgive him if he told his lover about this water drop and its neighbor, the berry blossom that mimics a Japanese lantern.P1010535

After the Shock

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P1010520Why, I ask the little dog, did someone whack down the plants bordering this mountain meadow path? It must have been dramatic when the gas powered cutting machine severed flowers, grass, berry bushes, and finger sized alders. I search the resulting debris for survivors and find almost ripe blue berries, still green blades of grass and fading flowers.

P1010510A few feet away from the havoc the weight of a flower, a white hedgehog shaped thing, bends over the thin grass blade that nurtures it. A white orchid still flowers next to the living grass. Joy after sorrow?

P1010496After the shock, I tell myself that it’s a small, necessary thing. Without the destruction, nature would close over the path and block our only way onto the meadow. I wouldn’t be able to watch the sun favor a Mt. Robert’s avalanche chute with a thin shaft of light or hear a falcon’s cry over the racket of ever present blue jays. But, that’s the way with man in nature. Nature always pays the price of our enjoyment.

Change in the Wind

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P1010481Today, unseen things on this mountain meadow bother Aki and I. Distracted by the wind that shakes elephant-eared skunk cabbage leaves, the little dog almost steps on a trail-side grouse. She doesn’t even react when the plump bird flutters to life and takes refuge in the crotch of a hemlock tree.

At first I welcome the wind because it blows away mosquitos and other bitting pests. Then it carries the sound of other hikers—-children who would rather be home watching TV than on the meadow; barking dogs; adults sharing the events of the past week. On the now friendly wind, Aki hears promises of the caress and maybe a chance to chase another dog. Her curmudgeonly owner hears only the disappearance of solitude.P1010478

Cruising

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L1220890Back from an Aki-less visit to the Montana wheat country, I take the little dog out on one of her favorite moraine trails. A long stretch of rainy weather ended in Juneau yesterday and we have a windless, sunny morning, which we don’t have to share with other hikers.

L1220891The Alaskan summer had raced along during my absence. The purple of lupine blossoms have faded and I found fireweed, that magenta harbinger of fall, in full flower. A nesting robin jogs along the trail to lead us away from their hatchlings. Now mated up, the beavers have switched into construction mode. Every day they add stripped tree branches and mud to dams that back water over our hiking trails.

L1220996We manage to arrive, with wet paws and boots, to a remote lake on the edge of the Troll Woods. A young beaver, fur slicked back with water, cruises 30 feet away. He swims back and forth in front of Aki, who watches with partially submerged paws. When she doesn’t plunge in, the beaver slaps his tail on the water and disappears under the resulting splash. I think the beaver is trying to drive us off, so I lead Aki away from him. The beaver follows our progress around the lake. Each time we stop, he starts cruising back and forth in front of Aki, like a teenager trying to screw up the courage to knock on a pretty girl’s door. The little dog loses interest long before the beaver, who punishes the lake with a series of tail splashes when we finally reenter the Troll Woods.L1220865

Water and Light

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P1140324The rain started at 6 AM and has fallen since in a steady drum beat. Already, it has loaded the canopy of this old growth forest with water. Concentrated in fat drops at the edge of spruce needles, the rain drops with a thud on Aki and I.

P1140322I chose this walk for its usual protection from wind and rain, something it does not provide us this morning. But, we do have broad skunk cabbage leaves that reach for their cousins over the trail and glisten even under dense canopy. Raised water bubbles on spruce needles shine like low grade jewels and magnify the things to which they cling.P1140337

Forest Calm

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P1140298Small domes of rain water occupy the crotches of lupine and camp out on the open plains of ferns and this twisted stalk plant. We step over leaves and twigs scattered on the Eagle River Trail by yesterday’s storm. The mid-summer forest is again a place of peace.

With the understory plants in high summer foliage and moss coloring much of the standing trees, a watercolorist could capture the forest’s emotion with a few tubes of green pigment. Peace and calm come from the restful colors but also, perhaps, from the abundance of oxygen exhaled by the forest.

Mosquitos swarm me every time I stop to photograph the green. Normally a slapper, I try to honor their lives until they leave a line of irritating bumps along the bottom edge of my hat. Even after that I can only roll them off.

P1140319We heard some slight road noise at the beginning of this walk but deep in the forest only thrush song rises above the river’s white noise. Near a meadow dominated by purple lupine the thrush breaks cover to fly onto a spruce limb. She watches in silence until the little dog and I drop onto the meadow. If not for the bugs, I would wait in the green for her song.P1140309

Hummingbird

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Rufus HummingbirdAki sleeps. The hummingbirds feast on sugar water. There are three of them, a couple and a single guy that only feeds when the other two are full. Almost every tree, bush, and plant in the yard is heavy with flowers, including red columbine bushes. Columbines sustain hummingbirds in the wild. The tiny guys ignore organic, holistic, healthy blossoms to feast on sugar water—the feeder a hummingbird junk food drive through. I feel a little guilty about the thrill I get when they blink into existence at the feeder then hover and suck down the stuff. But guilt does not block admiration. columbine