Category Archives: Dan Branch

Happy it is Still Winter

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I am leaving the car in the driveway this morning because of the snow. A new storm moved off the Pacific last night, covering the downtown streets with high-moisture-content snow. Usually, the first car to make tracks in it will have no trouble. The second one can end up sliding down the street. That’s what happened to a snow plough this morning. It slid sideways down Gold Street until coming to a stop against a traffic barrier.

            Aki doesn’t mind keeping it local. She trots in front of me down our street and turns up Gold. The poodle-mix leads me up Basin Road, passing under a birch tree full of dark-eyed junkos. My little dog ignored the little birds. She was too busy checking out dog scents. 

            Worried about her safety, I keep Aki on lead until we reach the Perseverance Trail parking lot. After being released, she takes advantage of her freedom to pay sniff and chase with two other dogs. While enjoys herself, I study the shimmering light coming through ice cycles clinging to the undersides of cliff rocks. Another dog walker pulls me out of my reverie by saying, “What a beautiful day. I am so glad that winter is not over.” Aki, who has just rolled in the new snow, must agree.

Little Brat

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Aki, you little brat! The little poodle-mix had just trotted up to the campground ski trail, threw me a quick look, and took off.  As I wait for her return, I fume. This was not in the plan. My plan would have me skiing along the lake edge to take advantage of the conditions. If we had stuck to my plan, my skis would be swishing through the three centimeters of powder covering well-packed snow. I could enjoy seeing sun on the glacier before the clouds returned. 

            After steaming for a few minutes, I take off after Aki. Another skier tells me that she is a half a klick up the trail, playing with an Australian Shepard. That’s where I find her. That’s where I place her on a leash. Holding it in one hand and both of my poles in the other, I ski the packed trail to a place where it almost touches the river. 

            After stepping out of my skis, I take Aki off lead. She shakes, stretches, and yawns. If she learned any lessons from her time on lead, she is not going to admit it. We head up the river to the lake. Clouds now block the sun and hide the Mendenhall Towers. The flat light makes it hard to see details in the snow. But the conditions allow me to ski in any direction. We are the first to track the lake snow since yesterday’s storm. When Aki peers through a mask of snow that has collected on her face, I can help but smile.  

No Eagles

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Aki and I returned home wet from the moraine. I was tired. Aki was not. She trotted over the top of snow that was too soft to support me. We were heading toward the river on a little used trail. With each step my legs plunged mid-calf through the covering snow. 

            I should have returned to the well-packed trail to circle Moose Lake. But I thought if I pushed on, we would be rewarded by one of those wilderness experiences that given to those who paddle or hike beyond the edge of nowhere. Maybe a wolf will appear out of the snow or we will spot a pair of tundra swans resting on a river eddy. At a minimum, there should be eagles. 

            The trail deteriorated as we neared the river. Aki, who seemed to float over the snow crust would charge ahead to check out scents or tracks and run back to check on me. With such encouragement I made it to the river. No wolf turned to look at us. No swans or even ducks floated on the river eddy. Clouds covered Mt. McGinnis. There were no eagles. 

Raven Games

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Today I’d be reduced to talking about the weather if not for the raven. Even though channel wind drove rain and snow into its side, the big black bird perched on the top of an old beach piling, lifted its massive beak skyward and croaked out an announcement of our arrival on the Sheep Creek delta. 

            The little dog ignored the raven, concentrating instead on checking scents left on this popular dog walking beach. We walked along a grass covered dune, keeping the wind, and I thought, the raven at our backs. But it was waiting for us after we crossed a flooding stream. I expected the raven to keep a respectful distance between itself and us. Instead it walked toward Aki, rocking from side to side, turning every fourth step into a hop, swishing its tail in what I took to be a provocative manner. 

            Aki mocked charged the raven, which flew a few meters down the beach. In less than a minute it was waddling its way to the little dog. One of the smartest of birds, the raven could have been teasing my poodle-mix. But it could have had darker intentions. Aki didn’t wait to find out. She growled again. Perhaps bored with its game of taunt-the-poodle, the raven flew off.

False Retreat

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This morning the little dog and I sought a trail that wasn’t covered with mushy snow. We found it in the strip of forest that curls around the north end of Douglas Island. The trail there was bare and made for easy walking except where remnants of snow covered the path. An invisible cloud of small birds—dark-eyed juncos and chickadees—almost deafened us with their insect-like chirping. 

            Water poured over the beaver’s dam, which was still covered with decaying ice. Yellow-green shoots of skunk cabbage pushed up through the ice. It felt like winter had abandoned the forest, retreating into the still snow-covered mountains of the Douglas Island Ridge. 

            On the beach fronting the forest, eagles relaxed on the top of waterside-rocks. A scattering of mallards waddled in and out of tiny lines of surf. High tides had flushed away most of the snow from the beach. But no green leaves climbed up the dead stalks of beach grass. Is this another false spring?  

Almost Empty

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Aki doesn’t think that this is a good idea. From the forest edge she watches me work across a frozen marsh toward Peterson Creek. I skirt inch thick plates of ice left on the march by the last high tide to reach the water. Two wind blown spruce form a bridge over the creek. Maybe the little dog is worried that I will use the fallen spruce to reach the opposite bank. 

            I’ve no desire to cross to the other side. We have already explored it, using a man-made bridge. We crossed it to check an eagle’s nest near the forest’s edge to learn whether it has been reoccupied. It was empty. So was the northern half of Stephen’s passage. Snow squalls obscured our view of Admiralty Island, except for a line of snow-covered peaks that glowed through the grey clouds.  Near Young’s Bay, an out of season salmon seine boat chugged along the Admiralty shore.

Ruins of Winter

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Aki and I are walking through the ruins of winter. At least that is how it seems. No snow clings to the trailside trees or hides the forest floor. Ice only covers two-thirds of the pond, and that is paper thin. A strip of denser ice covers the trail. It will soon be gone unless the north wind returns our winter.

            This is not the spring of fresh growth and bird song—it is the time for mud and dead grass. We will see four eagles on our walk to salt water. All of them will be roosting on mid-channel navigation markers. One Canada goose will fly over calling out for companions. We will never spot its flock. 

            None of this desolation will bother a merganser drake floating on a disintegrating ice island. True, its red-colored head feathers will be all ahoo. But that’s normal for the fish ducks. It will float by an ice remnant that looks like a sea wolf. I will wonder if the first artist in this area were inspired by such stubborn pieces of dying ice. 

Catkins

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Aki and I are heading to Nugget Falls. Deep snow covers the trail. We do okay as long as we stay in the trough pounded into the soft snow by the boots of other hikers. The trail offers some lovely views of the glacier and surrounding mountains. But reaching the best vantage points would require tramping through fifty meters of soft, wet snow. 

            The soft snow hinders Aki. She can’t reach bushes peed on my other dogs before the snow crust melted away. The little dog takes station behind me in the trench. We pass several willow shrubs that have pussy willows (catkins) decorating their upper branches. I want to get close enough to photograph these premature signs of spring but not if it means coming home with snow in my boots. Then I think, what would be so bad about that. 

            While Aki watches from the packed trail, I plod several meters to some catkins, each boot sinking forty centimeters into snow, until reaching the willow. The catkins have shed their protective shells and are already expanded as if summer was just around the corner. 

A Half Hour of Wilderness

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            Two adult bald eagles watch Aki and I walk out of old growth woods and onto a snow-covered beach.  Before we appeared they were probably watching ducks. There must be over a thousand of them just offshore: scoters, golden eyes, mallards, and my favorites—the harlequins. The golden eyes seem the most jumpy. In twos and threes they fly away, their wings imitating the maniacal call of Curley, one of the Three Stooges. The scoters are the most organized. Their large raft forms and reforms shapes like a American high school band at a football game. A half-dozen mallards watch all this from the beach. A few feet away, harlequins paddle with their heads plunged into the water. 

            I’m thankful for the chance to watch the ducks being ducks, not waterfowl made tense by eagle dives or aggressive dogs. But it is puzzling that the eagles haven’t tried pluck one of the unsuspecting harlequins from the water. 

            Aki’s having fun porpoising through the beach snow. She even ignores the siskins and thrush bouncing from limb to limb in the beachside alders. The little dog doesn’t object when we drop down onto bare section of the beach. The last flood tide has carried away the snow, leaving behind piles of severed seaweed. 

            Just after we find a set of fresh deer tracks, the first of 11 large dogs charges up to me. They are loose, but relatively well behaved. The dogs’ human handler carries a half-gallon sized bag for collecting their poop so he is not a yob. But any chance of spotting the deer is now gone. In seconds the dogs will be charging down the beach, stirring ducks, and maybe eagles to flight. We move on, saddened that the trail ahead, the one just transited by the dog pack, will have been swept clean of wild things. 

Startled Seal, Judgmental Eagle

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I was in the mood for solitude so I drove Aki to the Mendenhall Peninsula trailhead. Falling snow slowed traffic and deadened the view from Egan Highway. Only one car was parked near the trailhead. No tracks led from it. The scent of marijuana smoke hung in the air. The driver of the parked car was putting his solitude to use. 

            The little dog and I followed an informal trail across a forested side hill. The trail is tricky on a dry sunny day. This morning’s thin screen of snow made it worse. The nimble Aki had no problems reaching the water. She waited a long time to me to join her. We spooked a raft of mallards and watched them fly over the Mendenhall River. If the sun were shinning, the ducks’ shadows would have touched a cruising seal.

            We saw two other seals and a sea lion before returning the forest. Seals normally slip quietly beneath the water’s surface. One we spotted today crash dived, like it was in a hurry to catch prey. It reappeared near the far shore of the river. I wondered if it had been day dreaming when it looked over and spotted the poodle mix and I on the beach.

            An eagle scream diverted my attention away from the seals. We watched an eagle join its noisy mate in the top of a spruce tree. No food hung from the talons of the new arrival. I suspect that it’s mate’s scream was a scold, not a welcome home greeting.