Category Archives: Dan Branch

Surfing Dudes

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Today could be a holiday for the two sea lions surfing off this rocky beach. While we stand in shade, slipping on frost-slick rocks, they glisten in sun. Were they resting on nearby rocks when we broke through a screen of devil’s club plants and onto the beach? Maybe they would rather be dry and asleep. Maybe they see surfing as a chore that burns off calories they need to survive another winter’s day. After a few quick glances in our direction they move around a rocky point to where they might make a bed with sun-warmed stones.

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Two ducks, harlequins I guess, also surf a breaking wave. Rather then bob, letting the swell lift and drop them, these birds knife down the face of a small wave like dudes in board shorts. What possible purpose can this serve birds that must work for their living? Party on dudes.

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Like an Arctic Spring

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According to the calendar, winter started yesterday but it is spring in this beachside forest. It’s not a Wordsworth spring with its daffodil icons or even a Southeast Alaska spring marked by rising crocuses. This feels like a true northern spring when a hard nightly freeze follows each day of thaw. Like it would during an arctic spring, our snow pack has shrunken to an ice-crusted carpet that makes walking treacherous, even for Aki with her sharp nails.

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The little dog and I walk in darkness but sunlight explodes off the mountains. Shaman and the other islands dotting Lynn Canal seem to be sun bathing. But there are few animals to enjoy the view. A cabal of gulls search the tidelands for chow but only four ducks, all local harlequins, fish the bay.

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We are between lows, a time of busted weather that comes after the latest low has exhausted itself against our mountains. Soon, maybe tonight, a new storm will bring us snow and the return of winter.

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Solstice Without Snow

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Aki and I walk along the Mendenhall River where it slips into Fritz Cove. None of the local birds or animals show signs that they celebrate the Solstice. A harbor seal sulks in the river and we can hear but not see a trio of bald eagles. They complain from perches deep in the woods, sounding like hung over parents telling their kids to shut up. On the sand bar that forms the south border of the river mallard ducks waddle, stopping occasionally to belt out one of their maniac laughs. The gulls, being gulls, scream at each other. Solstice began early this morning. Maybe the birds and seals are partied out.

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Aki looks edgy, keeping above the high-tide line. Confident that tomorrow the earth will turn its face back to the north, I enjoy the gray. I wish we still had snow but settle for the ice stalactites that decorate a sheltered cove. Soon even they will be gone unless winter returns.

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Wing Strikes

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Light is precious this close to the winter solstice. Even during last week’s stretch of clear weather, dusk settled over Juneau before 3 P.M. Now the clouds are back as is the rain. Aki and I move with caution down a Treadwell trail covered with sloppy snow and ice. When the marine layer shatters over Gastineau Channel to let in light, I understand why my Celtic ancestors honored the winter sun.

 

1            The forest that hides the old mining ruins still retains snow from the last storm. It brightens the reflection of the twisted alders growing along a shallow pond. One triangle of pond ice juts into the air but the rain is already eroding its sharp corners. Tiny waves, the concentric rings radiating out from each rain strike, crash against the ice—wing strikes on softening marble.

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Two Degrees and Snow in The Banana Belt

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Aki is home on Chicken Ridge, watching the lilacs and Apple tree shed their burdens of snow as the temperature rise into the mid-thirties. Here, at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, it is barely above zero. Snow slows pedestrians and several hundred Canada geese crowd a small section of open water.

 

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On the inner bank of the flood control dike, a great blue herron stands motionless. It isn’t fishing. A coat of ice on the pond makes that impossible. No, the Hunter is just trying to survive. I wonder if this is the same herron that watched me last October when I pedaled after him on the trail to Asotin. I wonder if he will survive this rare cold snap.

Tough, Faithful Little Dog

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It’s two degrees Fahrenheit. There’s little breeze to produce a lower wind chill. But the warming sun is at our backs as we ski over lake ice toward the glacier. The bare-pawed Aki doesn’t seem to notice the cold. But her people worry that their hands will never regain feeling. Even though they are encased in my heaviest gauntlet gloves, I can’t warm my fingers without pulling them into the gloves’ palm area where they form a numb ball.

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The little dog dashes back and forth between her humans after we reach the apex of a looped trail and turn into the sun. Thanks to the perfect snow conditions, I manage to pull ahead of Aki’s other human. Confused, for this never happens, the little dog turns back the way we had come and runs at full speed toward the glacier where she expects to find me doddling along. Eventually Aki’s other human catches her and together they head toward the trailhead. Only when she hears my whistle, does the poodle-mix stop looking over her shoulder.

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Acceptance

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Fresh, foot-deep snow forces us onto a narrow trail that winds along the edge of Mendenhall Lake. It never leads us out of the shade. When I look out at the sun soaked glacier and Mt. McGinnis I feel trapped, like I am in Plato’s cave. Aki sticks to the trail too, keeping station behind an old human friend. But she can’t resist taking a few exuberant dashes out onto the sunny portions of the lake.

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The glom trail provides a good metaphor for the mood that has taken possession of the other human and I. During our drive to the trailhead, he received a call from a mutual friend with news of another death. This makes the third death notice received this week. I haven’t the words to cheer my friend. I’ll be heading south in a few days to attend my cousin’s funeral. Turning to the mountain, a white pyramid against the azure blue sky, we acknowledge that death is a part of life, which brightens our moods so we can appreciate Aki ability to make us laugh.

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Deep Snow

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The sun is teasing us today, appearing as a fuzzy ball above the Douglas Island ridge. It casts Gastineau Channel in an arctic light even though the temperature has already reached 22 degrees and there is no wind. Welcome to fjord country, little dog.

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Aki knows about fjords, having spent her life on or near several of them. She loves climbing up trails that start at salt water and allow us to reach alpine-like meadows in twenty minutes. But she has learned the hard way about deep snow and today she refuses to follow me onto a trackless Gastineau Meadow. She waits, a statue of concern, on the packed path as I wear myself out breaking trail in a 15-inch deep covering of soft snow. It doesn’t take much to read her thoughts: Have you finally lost it, man of mine?

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Aki Does Love Snow

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Wind blown snow, like that swirling around Chicken Ridge today, narrows your world. It limits us to views of the neighborhood, denies any chance to see Gastineau Channel or Mt. Juneau. I worry that it will discourage Aki from venturing much beyond her yard. But the little dog leans into the wind, walking quicker than usual to reach Basin Road where craftsmen houses provide us a windbreak. Even though it means facing into the wind again, she pulls me across the old trestle bridge that leads to the Perseverance Trail. When I let her off lead, she charges ahead then looks back to make sure I am still following my poodle-mix lead dog.

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We pass the old wooden chute that releases overflow from the flume carrying water to a small hydro plant behind the Salvation Army store downtown, head up a trail covered in drifted snow. Aki pushes on, porpoising in and out of the six-in-deep stuff. Soon she is plunging her muzzle in soft drifts and twisting her head when she comes up to cast off the flakes that stick to her gray fur. Most hangs on to give her a white mask.

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Only My Camera Cares

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It’s cold, cold enough to turn water seeping from mineral rich rocks on False Outer Point into frozen brown streams. Drips from exposed tree roots build up like candle wax on exposed grass blades. But the eagles still work the tidelands for food left behind by the ebbing tide. My old friend, the kingfisher looks for baitfish near the rocky shore. Even the simple sparrow flits among stalks of dried cow parsnip made stiffer by the freezing temperatures.

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Aki, wearing a felted covering, seems oblivious to the cold and wind. Other than taking extra care to avoid any water over ice, she acts like we are out for a summer outing. Am I the only one affected by the storm that has already obscured the mountains and glacier and carries snowflakes in its onshore wind? Technically, the answer to that question is, “no.” My digital camera turns on its self timer as I set up a shot of an eagle so I have to watch it glide with talons extended through my viewfinder while the camera counts to ten.

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