Under clear skies the sun would have lit up the summit of Mt. Juneau at 8:35 AM. We wouldn’t see any sunshine at sea level until an hour or so later.   The sun would then bounce along the peaks of Douglas Island, make a partial ellipse of Mt. Jumbo, and drop a half hour or so before the official sunset time of 3:06 PM.  I think we had clear skies all of one day this month but most have played like today, a symphony of gray.

We rain forest dwellers embrace the gray all year and the darkness each winter. Other approaches lead to insanity or a quick exit to the Lower 48. Aki and I are prepared to embrace it all as we start across a moraine trail that leads to the Mendenhall River and then to the glacier.  Driving in the dark we reach the trailhead as the dusk that usually lights our mornings is building. Aki reluctantly leaves the car, chilled by the sounds of war coming from our nearby gun range. Nothing says Sunday morning at the gun club like group target practice with hunting rifles.

After working through some young woods we reach the river, now a dark green snake moving past snow covered gravel bars. From here it looks to have sprung directly from the glacier that looms above it. Only an immature bald eagle can share the beauty but he looks away from the river and into the forest below his roosting tree.

The trail takes us away from the river and along a lake where last Fall shotguns fired over duck decoys startled Aki into the woods. Today she walks with tail down until we pass beyond the lake.

I find the tracks of a Great Blue Heron when the trail starts paralleling the river again.  During yesterday’s rain storm it stood along a now dry rivulet, back to the river.  Its now frozen tacks are crisp as you would expect from such a patient hunter. I wonder why it struck a stalking pose here, which offers only snow and mud.

Noticing an unfrozen section of the river beginning to glow I look up and see sunlight trying to muscle through the gray sky.  The sun manages to send diffused beams bouncing across the river until surrendering to the clouds. Later, on the way back to the car we watch a similar struggle in the skies above an alder lined pond.  After that, it’s all gray until night at 3.

The State Museum in Juneau once hosted an exhibit of wonderful ceremonial masks by Yupik (eskimo) carvers.  Most represented tundra spirits. My favorite was one honoring the spirit of bubbles rising to the surface of the water. It made me think of driving a small dog team over quickly frozen ice near Bethel. The dogs pulled the sled over a mural of tea tinted ice seasoned with suspended plant strands and bubbles. On one trip we passed over a muskrat swimming under the ice to its home. This week’s hard freeze following a long thaw dotted the moraine and troll woods near Juneau with pockets of such magic.

The ice was too fragile to support Aki’s light body so we shirted each patch, passing in wonder each visual offering. At least I experienced wonder. Aki, not so much. She is the practical partner—out to avoid danger and wet feet. She doesn’t care about the concentric lines that form around the puddle edges. Each one a former boundary between ice and the still liquid surface of the puddle. She ignores the collogue of fallen leaves and still golden grass stalks trapped under the windows of ice. She does chase a small dark rodent, which scares me a bit as anything that size in these woods other than a squirrel is generally ill tempered.  Today Aki and the “prey” part in peace.

Moving past the struts of a rusted out VW Beetle rising out a newly frozen pond, we move further into the woods. The snow is still soft here making the travel harder. Soft gray light on his overcast day makes it difficult to follow the trail until we reach a well packed stretch. Relaxing I drift into that almost transcendental state awaiting those who don’t mind getting a little lost and don’t fear wild things.  Time passes then I almost jam my shin into willow arcing low over the path, which continues unaltered beneath the human barrier. We are deep in the troll woods now. I’ve been following one of the beaver’s logging roads.  They can pass unhindered beneath it. I have to step over.

I’ve been led down with rodent path before and soon have us back on a human trail but not before crossing some free flowing water courses. I pitch Aki gently over each before making my own leap. She arrives at the car with dry paws. I have wet boots.

 

The first steps of the year in snowshoes always leave me discouraged.  It lasts until I find the rhythm and adjust the pace of travel.  Only snowshoes will work this morning. A series of nasty North Pacific lows have buried us in two feet of snow.  Strong winds pushed the stuff into the woods so nothing changes when we move from open moraine into the troll woods.  This first snow of the year has enough cohesion to drape white thick blankets over the trail railing.

I find the rhythm quicker than Aki who hangs back 20 feet and occasionally glances toward the car with a look of cautious hope on her face. Has she out grown the puppy joy that plunging head first into deep snow used to bring?  She did turn 5 last week. We have this place of beauty to ourselves so I move deeper into the woods. Eventually she takes station a foot behind the tail of my snowshoes.

No tracks mark the snow before we crest a low ridge and drop into the beaver flooded land. Then we see snowshoe hare tracks everywhere. Trail side alders hear heavy loads of snow. Those overcome by it lean low over the path so I have to duck under or turn back. At one of these barrier trees Aki bursts forward to roll wildly in the trail. Distracted I rise up too quickly and discharge a bucket of snow onto my head. Some manages to fall between my jacket and shirt collars. If Aki finds this funny she doesn’t show it on her poodle poker face.

My goal is the troll woods with its legion of moss transformed trees. We turn back before there when we come to the recent tracks of a wolf crossing the trail. Back at the car I pull golf ball sized snow balls from Aki while watching another snow storm move over the glacier. Its blue ice glows beneath a thickening layer of snow.

On a trail picked only for its handy location we find some surprises this moist morning. Ten minutes in we spot the moss covered body of a 60‘s vintage VW Beetle boxed in by trees.  It makes me think of Harry Potter and also of an abandoned Tlingit village. That the VW appears to have become one with the woods makes me think of Harry Potter’ enchanted Ford Anglia skulking about the Forbidden Forest. That an alder shoot may soon pop up through the sun roof reminds me of the abandoned village I once reached by kayak.

Before Aki. I was paddling with a friend from the west coast of Prince of Wales Island to Sea Otter Sound. We stopped for lunch on a smooth beach. We didn’t realize the beach once served a village until we spotted the platforms of two long houses reaching from the woods almost to the beach.  Those who peopled this village believed in allowing totem poles to age to nothing while standing in the spots they were first raised. At that time I dreamed of finding such totem poles.

When the boxed in VW Beetle drove around Juneau, Tlingit and Haida people began moving the old poles to climate controlled buildings where they could be preserved for future generations. The last pole had been moved from this village site the winter before my visit but we did see platform homes scattered about the old village site.

Each home had been fashioned with hand adzed boards.  Some were little more than raised platforms but one still had its wide flat board with an oval opening through which people once entered the home. It also had a vertical wooden panel at the center of where the rear wall once stood. These boards had supported alone a center beam. Luck or providence had encouraged a young spruce to grow up through the floor boards until it supported the weight of the center beam as it rested in a fork formed by trunk and upper branch. One end of the beam rested gently on the vertical front panel.

After musing for a few minutes about the village I start to explore the VW further but Aki shows impatience so we move deeper into the forest covered moraine. Three blasts from a 12 gauge shotgun sound as we approach Moose Lake. Aki follows me cautiously to the water where we see the wakes of ducks swimming from the hunter. No dog splashes after a downed bird so he must be used every shell in his chamber without gain. There is a strange beauty in the sound of a 12 gauge being fired over water but Aki doesn’t appreciate it. At her insistence we abandon the lake for a path through a thick willow copse and enter a land flooded by beavers. The trail is now under water so we do a work around through the surrounding troll woods.

After regaining the trail on higher ground we take it to the paved road to Mendenhall Glacier, which we cross and then enter some woods we have never traversed. Suckered in by its open appearance we soon find ourselves in another forbidden forest. Our goal, to reach the Powerline Trail, proves hard to secure. The terrain turns hilly and each low spot is choked with tangled alders. We cross a small water course with no business being there. Lower alders reach across it and thick moss cover the rocks I must use for the crossing. Aki crosses first, flying from my hand to the ground on the far side. I follow but only with help from a strong overarching alder branch.

The terrain changes after the creek crossing—opening up in a mossy land where small fields of white lichen grew as if in planted fields. We find an empty beer can while still far from road or trail. Otters use mossy country like this for their picnics and I wonder if they have a taste for cheap beer.

Aki disappears just before we reach the trail and returns with the look of a dog wishing for the familiar. She gets it minutes later when we find the car.