Category Archives: Dan Branch

Avalanche Season

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It’s avalanche season in the Perseverance Basin. The little dog and I hear the thunderstorm drama of two but don’t turn back. We’ve chosen a route that avoids the run outs of their chutes. It still startles to hear the ripping, crack of thunder sound of a winter’s buildup of snow breaking away from Mt. Juneau. Today the smaller snowfalls we see quickly diminish to cascades that sound like loose gravel falling down a drainpipe.

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It’s also early spring. The forest ground, now freed of its overburden of snow, seems to exhale. It’s breath smells faintly of mold, dirt, and the resin of fallen spruce needles.

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Fishing Near the College

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We start this hike on a trail through Juneau’s tiny university. Students encased in rain gear talk about classes or the opposite sex. In less than five minutes were are on the Auk Lake trail, passing in the process two totem poles and a bronze sculpture of a breaching humpback whale. Aki likes this portion of the hike, perhaps because of the friendly reception she receives from the students.

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On the edge of the stream that drains the lake, a guy in commercial crab pulling rain gear casts with a fly rod. The stream carries thousands of sockeye fry past him and dumps them into Auk Bay. This salmon fry river draws the attention of cutthroat trout and dolly varden that had wintered in the lake. The fly fisherman targets the dollies and trout, which target the salmon fry, which have been feeding on things lower down the food chain. So much violence carried on beneath the languid surface waters of the lake and stream.

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Silent Beach

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I should know what to call that mountain, little dog. When I check a map later, I’ll learn that its name is Thunder. But this morning, it is just another tooth in the saw blade of mountains that dam the Juneau Icefield. Aki doesn’t care about mountains or their names. She worries about eagles. We keep to the beach’s brush line even though it’s as quiet as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

 

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Last night the trail’s tidal door closed. Now it opens on the ebb. But seawater still covers most of the beach and the sand bars that form the mouth of the Mendenhall River. I lead Aki around several headlands, each time expecting to see eagles, otters, ravens, or song birds. When none appear, Aki trots across a widening sand bar to a driftwood root wad where eagles like to roost at low tide. After nosing small surf striking near the wad, she turns back to the brush line. An eagle launches from a spruce deep in the forest and flies over us. Minutes later two other eagles play chase over the river. The one behind extends its talons like they do when diving on prey or seeking to mate. A gull dives on them, breaking up their fun.

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Uncommon Merganzers

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The common merganser is not so common in the rain forest that Aki and I patrol. We see many of the red headed variety. Today, one our way to ski, we spot a raft of both types of the merganser cousins on a stretch of open water of the otherwise still frozen Peterson Creek. We also watched a larger raft of mergansers react nervously to a hunting eagle over Amalga Harbor. Both are signs that the spring bird migration has begun.

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The ski trails along Eagle River are deteriorating but by making the occasional work around we managed to reach the river. Encouraged by the two merganser sightings, I hope to spot more migrating birds here. In past springs, we watched tundra swans, geese, and a myriad of ducks rest on the river before resuming their northward flight. But not today.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

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Not far from the ruins of the A.J. Mine, Aki and I pass a woman sleeping in the front seat of an old SUV. I hope she doesn’t have children cuddling together in the car’s luggage area. After passing her in silence, we drop down Boroff Way—nothing more than metal stairs crooked enough for a fairy tale—to reach South Franklin Street. Ravens croak and a flock of red polls chit and swirl overhead. But I can barely hear them over the sound of a motorized barge warming up. The bargemen will work overtime today to get the new cruise ship dock ready for the first Princess boats in May.

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On South Franklin several homeless people make their way to the Glory Hole for breakfast. One pulls a wheeled suitcase behind him. Weak sunlight glints off the plastic with which he has wrapped his bedroll. Three homeless, gray haired, dressed in faded gear, have jammed themselves onto a Marine Park bench. Others stand along a nearby railing. In a tree above them, a raven roosts in silence. The homeless stare out at a channel empty of boats, birds or whales. Are they looking at from where their came? With a decent boat, they could use the channel to reach their home village or even take the Inside Passage to Seattle.

Later and blocks away up Main Street, I’ll hear my first robin song of the year. But in this place where Juneau’s homeless pass the day, robins rarely sing.

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Cusp of Winter

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It’s the cusp of winter and this spruce forest is at its ugliest. Aki doesn’t care. She dashes ahead as I ski past old growth trees heavy with moss and lichen. But I can’t ignore how the detritus of winter—dead limbs and thwigs, cones stripped of seeds by red squirrels, and dried spruce needles—discolor the snow. There are no leaves or ferns to soften the lines of the bare blueberry brush or devil’s club stocks. It must be like surprising a beautiful woman just as she stirs from a fitful sleep. At first all you notice is the tussled hair, naked imperfections in the skin, and reddened eyes. You wonder how you could have ever believed her special.

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But the beauty here is found above the forest floor in the old growth spruce trees spaced along the trail like soldiers. Without winter snow or summer growth, the beauty of their strong bones has no competition.

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Folk Wisdom

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In like a lion, out like a lamb. So much for folk wisdom. This March, which started with a wind whipping snowstorm ends today with a dump of rain. No fleecy air caresses Aki and I as we walk through snow slop on the Treadwell ruins trails. The little dog minces along, cringing each time a paw punches through wet snow and into the melt water pooling beneath. Robins shake water from their wings in parts of Juneau where dark eyed juncos search in packs for food. But today, the Treadwell forest is a bird-barren place.

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There is more action on the beach, now exposed by a very low tide. A handful of gulls gabble along the steam that drains the collapsed glory hole. But it’s the trio of mallard ducks that attract my attention. I usually see their kind floating together, even in shallow water. Today two hens and a drake stroll together along the bottom of a shallow rivulet, as if this were a fine spring day, as if to prove the truth of another piece of folk wisdom: rain makes lovely weather for ducks.

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Melting Time

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I’ve almost forgotten how much Aki loves running on snow, even after it has been softened by rain and warm temperatures. She dashes in front as if a child at an amusement park. I still enjoy skiing but am ready for spring. But Aki might morn the end of this snowy winter.

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The trail takes us to the junction of the Eagle and Herbert Rivers. Both are swollen with tide and snow melt. Weakening pans of ice float past. One thinning sheet carries several rocks that each must weigh more than Aki. They float like offering to the hungry waters of spring.

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Back in Rain Forest

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Back in the rain forest, back with Aki, and it is raining. The little dog and I slip and slide over the wet trail snow, working our way through the coastal woods. While her humans were in the Yukon Territory, Aki enjoyed five sleepovers at a good friend’s house. We fall back into the familiar pattern. She scoots ahead, drawn by an intriguing smell while I search the woods for beauty. Today, she has more luck than me.

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In this awkward time, when winter drags its feet, I wish for spring—the white, lantern-shaped blueberry flowers, balsam popular incense, and even the appearance of the common skunk cabbage flowers.

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The pounding of a sapsucker rings like hammer blows when we reach the beach. Aki refuses to venture below the high tide line. It’s the eagles. Two chatter in the top of a beachside spruce. When did that happen? Did the little watch from her perch on the couch one of the neighborhood eagles carry away a cat? “Missing Cat” signs have recently been attached to power poles on our street. Or does the little dog just sense the danger?

White Pass

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I’m back in Alaska and on the MV Le Conte—six and a half hours from home. We are waiting for last southbound vehicles to drive onto the car deck so we can depart. Onshore, the tourist town of Skagway awakens from its winter hibernation. Outside, gulls wheel over balls of herring. The Edgar Oldenhdroff waits for a load of Yukon ore.

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Surviving the drive to here from Whitehorse always seems a bit of a miracle this avalanche-prone time of the year. During our last March visit to the Yukon, we had to drive through a small avalanche. It bent our front license plate but otherwise did no damage. Today we pass over pavement recently cleared from snow slides but had no close calls.

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Before the drop down White Pass and into Alaska, we skied at the northern terminus of the Chilkoot Trail. Pushing our boards through newly drifted snow, we waddled to the snow-walled aid station that volunteered had crated for last Saturday’s Buckwheat ski race. Three days ago, the place was noisy with skiers. Today, we had the place to ourselves. I wanted to push on even though sticky snow slowed our progress. Just over a low set of hills lay the way to Lake Bennett, where more than 100 years ago stampeders built rafts and DIY boats for the Yukon River float to the Dawson City gold fields. Then, axes and saws would have shattered the late-winter silence. Today, it is only diminished by our creaky skis.

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