Sunlight floods over Mt. McGinnis but leaves the rest of our view in the dim glow of early morning. Aki and I traverse up a granite cliff shaved flat by the retreating glacier. She moves freely over the ice and packed snow trail with me following cautiously behind. Already one of my ice grippers is broken.

Even without their leaves the trail side brush screen out most of the view, here of frozen lake and the flat moraine that boarders it, now just being touched by early morning light. I spot a mountain goat on the high ground above Nugget Falls, maybe a mile away and look forward to a chance to view him a close.

With their white fleece, curved back horns and prominent brow, our Mountain Goats look like descendants of the pagan god Pan. I can almost hear his pipe music play over the awakening moraine below, looking new and fresh in first light under this crisp blue sky.  Recognizing the danger in such a flight of fancy, Aki snaps me out of it with a full speed charge down trail.

Despite her efforts I still feel like the first man to transit this trail to Nugget Falls—the air too clean, colors too rich, light too pure, snow too deep and shapely, the silence too profound for me to accept her well meaning lesson.

Another gray day on the moraine but one spiced up with two inches of pure white snow. A good day to reflect on the humble Sitka Alder and the drab willow. They were the first plants of size to gain a foothold on the moraine, tough witnesses to the the glacier’s retreat. Normally something to cut out of a photograph, with today’s topcoats of fresh snow providing counterpoint to dark bark they make excellent frames for greater beauty.

These pioneers laid the groundwork for Aki’s Troll Woods—building soil for the poplars and spruce even though the big trees would eventually rob them of light and nutrients; force them to carry out a holding action on soggy lake edges and bogs; make them dependent on the bowels of birds to carry their seeds to newly disturbed ground.

On the edge of beaver flooded land we find an alder displaying signs of spring, summer and fall under a coating of winter snow. On one supple twig cling a well formed leaf from last fall, spent cones, and spring bright pollen pods. Almost hidden by snow are this year’s tightly wrapped leaf buds.

Red Alder, the largest of the clan, provides excellent material for carving. I learned to work with it from master carvers at the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan. They helped me make the tools—alder handled adzes with blades fashioned from re-tempered car springs, crooked and not-so-crooked knives ground from cross cut saw blades. They taught me to work with wood from a tree freshly fallen and how the adze could be used to quickly transform a piece of firewood into an abstract figure. They encouraged me to cradle the new form in my lap while using crooked knives to mimic my model.

With the help of another master carver, an Italian American from New York City, I used adze, crooked knives, and not-so-crooked knives to carve a mask of my recently deceased father. The intimacy of the experience helped me grieve. Here is the result.

Bad weather doesn’t discourage Aki or prevent us from taking an adventure each weekend day. When the ice or snow make the roads impassible we walk up the Gold Creek drainage toward the old glory hole mine in Perseverance Basin. Today the soft rain drifting onto the Chicken Ridge snow pack won’t keep us from driving. The rain falls from clouds so low they block our view of the mountains, so thick we can’t see Douglas Island across Gasteneau Channel.  Driven more by smells than sights, Aki happy charges through the mist and into the car while I fill the car top carrier with skis.

The temperature climbs to 37 then 39 degrees as we drive North to Eagle River on icy roads. We see few cars on the way so I am not surprised to find the trailhead empty but pleased that a well defined ski track leads into the old growth

The house’s other resident human skis ahead of me. Aki dashes between us before taking up station behind our leader. With wet packed track we move easily into the forest and then onto a muskeg meadow. At the edge a single file wolf track arcs down onto a small snow cover stream. Someone is still thinning out the local snowshoe hare population.

I think of the almost tame black wolf that hunted our glacial moraine and the time he accompanied Aki and I on a ski to Mendenhall Lake. Seeking canine companionship the wolf would hang around the lake, sometimes playing like a puppy with local dogs.  He would howl over the lake on moonlit nights.  Once we skied to the sound, Aki searching for clues with her nose and me trying to keep down the primal fear that rises when a predator howls.

Someone shot the wolf, not far from where we ski today. The police seized the pelt, as black as the Mendenhall Lake wolf. When it didn’t return to the moraine we knew it was dead. I miss the black wolf and the chance to see it frolicking on the lake but its end was inevitable.  I pray that the creature single tracking this meadow won’t try to bridge the world between his kind and man.

 

We approach every river with caution this time of year when ice thinned by mid-winter thaws may or not may not hold our weight.  Today no ice covers this portion of the Mendenhall River where greenish water runs almost free of glacier silt, sliding around snowcapped boulders before entering a channel still covered with ice.  Sticky snow slowed our progress across the moraine so I am surprised when just a few feet from the river’s bank it suddenly releases my skis to glide quickly toward the water on a downward slope.  Aki watches passively as I manage to just stop in time.

Turning up river I use the now cooperative snow to slide along the bank and drop down onto firm ice covering a calm portion of the river. Knowing that only inches of water separate the river bottom from ice I enjoy skiing over the smooth surface with its thin covering of last night’s snow.  Aki skirts the ice, trotting through the deeper snow above the river bank. I soon join her and move along a portion of the river where the current boils and sings out a warning.

We reach a place where the trail offers a narrow and uneasy passage between fast water and an impenetrable willow thicket. Even though a confusion of small boulders fills this tiny space between river and forest we could ski through it on a quickly disappearing blanket of snow. Twenty minutes more would take us to the lake, now covered with thick fog. Looking down I see that Aki has no heart for it today’ so we return to the moraine to find that the skis now slide easier in warming snow.

I don’t long for sun on these gray days until light breaks through to ramp up the contrast and amp up the earth tone colors of winter. When it happens at day’s end the sun can flood our cloud cover with warm pastels before letting night settle things back to winter normal.