Category Archives: Dan Branch

Crazy

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Crazy weather little dog. We just drove through thick snow flurries to Eagle River. Now, ten minutes after leaving the trailhead, sunlight touches the ski trail through the old growth forest. The trees, freshly burdened with new, wet snow, start shedding their loads. I want to write that they sighed following the release but only silence accompanied the cascades of snow. Aki is in hog heaven—a place she defines as having snow soft enough to roll in but still able to support her weight. I’m pretty happy too on skis that move smoothly down the trail and the chance to glimpse blue sky through the forest canopy.

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The trail takes us in and out of the forest and then onto a muskeg meadow spotted with haggard-looking spruce. Some of the trees are as bare a power poles. Long strands of goat’s beard lichen hang from the living ones. Snow clouds move in after we leave the meadow and whiten the little dog and I until we reach the car. Before leaving, I walk onto the Eagle River Bridge and spot of raven’s blackness soaring through a thick snow shower. Before the bird disappears into the riverside spruce, I snap two or three photos of it. But it doesn’t appear in any of the pictures that I uploaded onto my computer. That is no strange than the weather.

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Porpoising

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Aki needs some beach time so we head to the old Auk Village site. It is still snowing when we arrive. We are at the tail end of the storm that left a foot of white stuff on the old growth forest floor. The little dog and I move down a well-packed trail as wet snow and melt water drip from the trailside spruce. We are soaked by the time we drop down onto the snow-free beach.

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As Aki chases after her Frisbee, I scan the crescent-shaped bay for life. In addition to the usual confab of gulls, harlequin ducks, and crows, I spot a small pod of Dahl porpoise hunting just offshore. They, well porpoise: briefly break the bay’s surface then dip back beneath the water. It happens fast, too fast to see anything but backs and dorsal fins. Unlike their larger cousins, the whales, the porpoise don’t form a noticeable plume when they exhale. But their rolling through water shinning silver with storm light still gives me a thrill.

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Still Snowing

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After yesterday’s deep-snow struggles, Aki and I are exploiting the efforts of snowplow drivers and sidewalk shovelers to move easily around downtown Juneau. Berms of snow line the paths and roadways. It’s was not snowing when we left Chicken Ridge so the berms were dark with the sand and gravel used to improve traction for the cars. But it only takes a flurry of quarter sizes snowflakes to cover the mire with white.

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Before the purifying flurry, I could anticipate each of Aki’s stopping points because they were marked yellow with dog urine. The new snow covering has no apparent affect on Aki’s nose for she continues to drag me to a stop every few meters. On a metal set of stairs, the little dog throws on the breaks. She must smell the cat that stands still as a statute in front of the Tibetan pray flag house. Aki doesn’t see the cat or she would growl. She doesn’t like cats, even wee things like this. Later Aki will not see the brace of ravens huddled together on a snow covered flower box. But, after detecting my attention, they will fly away into the storm.

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High Centered

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Aki is stuck, high-centered a foot of new snow. Big, “Charlie Brown Christmas Special” flakes deepen the snow cover. Nearby, gulls and scoters bob in the three-foot swells about to slam onto a snow covered beach. The little dog gives me a patience look. She could be barking complaints about my trail selection. She could be whining. Instead she waits for the expected rescue.

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I want to explain that I took special care to stomp down the trail. But her face tells me not to bother. She understands. I lift up the little dog and carry her up the trail and over a five-foot deep berm thrown up by a truck when it plowed out the trailhead parking lot. When released, she rolls her face in the snow and starts to chew off the snowballs now clinging to her legs. I want to tell her that thanks to this winter storm, she’d struggle on any trail we used today. A ten-year victim of our fickle weather, Aki doesn’t need such reassurance.

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Back to the Cave

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It’s a white day: white skies, white snow following on a lake ice covered with more of the same. I’m back on the pilgrimage trail to the glacial ice cave. But, this time the little dog and her other human are here.

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Aki bounces through the new snow. Her humans use skis on the irregular surface. They are tools, not sporting equipment. Without them, we’d be slogging through the heavy new snow.

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At the glacier, Aki’s humans switch to ice cleats and use a frozen creek for access to the ice cave. On this day of flat light, I don’t expect to find as much beauty as on Friday when strong sunlight muscled its way through the thick glacial ice. But the cave surprises. In the softer light, I find fairy ice fractures, crystal clear against a background of blue.

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Ice Cave Pilgrimage

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I am on a pilgrimage with a poet and a memoirist, but not Aki. As is required for any worthwhile pilgrimage, we endure pain. Winds gusting to 30 miles-an-hour chill our exposed skin and push obscuring wind over the lake ice. (Aki would not have liked the wind). Because it is shrinking, we must walk farther to reach the glacier than last year.

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We are not alone. A line of other pilgrims move with us on a long, flat trail to the glacial ice cave. Another line of walkers moves away from the glacier. With the wind at their backs, sun on their faces, and fresh memories of the cave’s beauty, they should appear happy, if not transformed. But most just look cold, ready for lunch.

I had hoped that the wind would have kept the selfie seekers away. But I should know to never to underestimate the need for Facebook affirmation. This dark thought is hypocritical. I am also on this walk to photograph beauty.

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After passing through a wind funnel and climbing a small moraine hump, we reach the cave. Water drips from the icicles that form a fringe over the opening. From inside comes the sound of teenagers expressing awe. We pass through a gentle curtain of ice melt and into an aquamarine tunnel. The cave is lined with the ancient ice, some hundreds of year old; ice that traps stones ripped long ago from the bedrock. In places it is crystal clear, others as green as aquarium glass or cobalt blue.

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We pass through the cave and climb onto the glacier itself. A week of strong wind has scoured the surface ice free of snow. Here the glacier is all undulation and soft edges. Less and half-a-kilometer down the river of ice, fissures have cut the glacier face into chunks that will soon calve into bergs. Next summer I will canoe around the new icebergs, knowing that they will melt to nothingness before the next winter, wondering whether the shrinking ice cave has finally collapsed.

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Frustration

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Aki and I are frustrated. The little dog sulks in her house, still wearing the red sweater that celebrates International Woman’s Day. Lack of activity is not the problem. The frustration rose after a good walk around Auk Lake, which included a stretch on the snow-covered lake, itself. Aki played with a friendly, if rambunctious sled dog. I talked with two British photographers who had just finished filming a red squirrel. I could hardly hear them over the noise of cars driving fifty miles an hour a few feet away. The Brits were satisfied, even thrilled at their encounter with the red squirrel. This made me question whether I’ve been jaded by the rain forest’s beauty. The visitors could have been filming a fishing eagle or otter. They could have found red squirrel subjects deep in a quiet, coastal forest.

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After the hike I tried to help my hiking partner’s configure his computer to satisfy a new Internet provider. For four hours Aki watched me being placed on hold and shifted from one person to another. Each person needed a magic word to solve the problem. I was fresh out of magic. All the fruit of the morning walk seemed lost, gone up in the smoke of my frustration. My failure to help connect a friend to the World Wide Web cut me off, for an afternoon, from my calm connection.

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A Cold Sheet of Ice

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Aki doesn’t want to be here. She’d rather be back on the trail that splits a thick patch of wild roses. But morning sunlight bouncing off new ice has pulled me onto the grass flats drained by Fish Creek. The little dog followed, mincing her way over thin sheets of ice that started forming from salt and fresh water at high tide.

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Mountains, a glacier, and birds normally grab all my attention during walks on the Fish Creek delta. But with the north wind making the 15 degree temperature chill like a number well below zero, we find the usual suspects—crows, gulls, and eagles—hunkered on the ground or in trees beyond my view. Aki passes within 15 feet of a murder of crows that ignore her. The birds take flight when I inadvertently cross their privacy line but land a few meters down the beach. Is it because she is dressed in a pink insulated number that warms her and challenges my manhood?

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My mind and camera turned toward the grass flats, now covered with a shinny white blanket that has molded itself to the land. In most places, the new ice flattens the underlying grass. But strands with more tensile strength break through the surface. Some force—wind or water current—has caused the ice to mimic the patterns used by the Japanese painter Hokusai to form The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. The tide is still retreating, allowing unsupported ice to slump and shatter. Aki and I are surprised by the sound of the wind scattering some of the shards over the white plain.

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Blowing Snow, Giggling Kids

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We are back on Mendenhall Lake skiing into a brisk breeze. Blowing snow obscures parts of the mountains above the glacier and has filled in the tracks of those who skied here earlier in the day. Aki tears ahead into the northern, In seconds she catches her other human, Minutes later, we all turn around and finish our ski session on the the nearby campground’s protected track. There we find another storm, this one of preschoolers who giggle and move in our direction. Some try to ski. Most drag their equipment toward the cars that brought them. I lift the little dog off the snow before she can dash around the kids, barking her invitation to play. She treats small people like shy puppies.

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Light and Shadow

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Another day of strong light and wind for the rain forest. Aki and I walk a narrow path pounded out of fresh snow by utility workers and dog walkers. The workers use the path to access a power substation. Dog walkers take it to a rocky beach along Stephens’ Passage. We are here for the clarifying light, I mutter but not loud enough for the little dog to hear. She likes to keep it simple.

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The retreating tide has revealed much of the stony beach. Thanks to the deep shadows produced by the clarifying light, I could count every rock on the shore, every barnacle and the waves that boom while striking barrier boulders and reefs. But that would only produce sums.

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Easily resisting the temptation to count, I lead Aki off the beach and back down the path to where another one breaks off into the woods. No one has used this path since the last snow but it’s easy walking.  I head toward the lazy portion of Peterson Creek. In summer it looks like a New England stream with its deep pools and borders of thick hardwoods. But today little sunlight reaches the stream. What does can’t make the opaque surface ice sparkle. River otters could liven things up. We cross many of their snow slides. Each winds down the bank and onto the creek ice. But the slides aren’t slick from recent use. Even the otters look elsewhere for a little excitement.

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