Category Archives: glacier moraine

Irish Tea

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Before sifting through today’s photographs, I put the kettle on to boil and drop a bag of Barry’s Irish Breakfast Tea into a mug. Then I start the music from the Chieftains first album playing on the stereo. Aki follows me around the kitchen after the water boils. Something about the smell of Irish tea raises her expectations for treats.

Most Americans wait until St. Pat’s day in March to connect with their Irish roots. They drink more whiskey or beer then, rather than good cups of the Irish tea. This time of year, they prefer coffee drinks laced with peppermint or eggnog. But the Daughters of Mary and Joseph who ruled my grammar sky in Los Angeles, missed their Irish families most in December. They shared their dreams about the joys of Christmas in Cork. Maybe that is why I asked the little poodle mix to walk with me around the little Sheep Creek delta on this late December day.

Small rafts of Mallard ducks were hammering the shallows when we arrive at the delta. At first I took them for scattered rocks. They must be capturing the baby salmon that try to leave fresh for salt water each fall. Even more birds fish in the creek or along the shallow edge of the beach. They don’t care about Aki or I, just about each other. A few gulls even make low surveillance flights over our heads. Suddenly shafts of strong and clear white fill the sky over Gatineau Channel, looking like bright light escaping the room where a good mother just gave birth to a must-loved Christmas child.

Surprising Splashes of Light

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The temperature has stayed above freezing for several days and nights. Such a winter let down often occurs when a cold weather snow storm hammers the east coast of the United States. That’s what happened this week. In Juneau, if you drive more than 20 miles north of town, you can often ski there. We did that yesterday even though we had a good chance of being hammered by rain. This morning, the sky was temporality dry. But our weather app was predicting the return of snow. We grabbed Aki and our ski gear and headed out to the Mendenhall Campground. 

            Heaps of soft snow covered the campground. But thanks to work done by the groomers, the ski trail was solid. In fact, it was still icy. Aki’s other owner and I had spent more than 10 years skis cross country skiing down wind-pounded paths in Bush Alaska so today’s Mendenhall path should be a piece of frozen cake. 

            I didn’t expect any decent views of the glacier or its surrounding mountains. But the lower clouds lifted and pulled apart to allow shafts of morning sunshine to light up parts of the ski trail. Clouds would soon bury the sunshine with blankets of grey. For half-an-hour, we could suck up the sunshine.

Flocked by New Snow

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Before heading over to the Gastineau Meadows Trail, I had to shovel away several inches of snow from our driveway. There might be more on the trail so I slipped my ice grippers into a jacket pocket. The sun was only a few inches above the Douglas Island ridge when we started the drive. It rarely rises more above the ridge this close to our shortest day of the year.

            Two ravens are waiting for us when we reach the trailhead. One clings to the snow-covered branches of an alder tree, its pure-black body standing out against the flanks of Mt. Juneau. The ravens fly just in front of us as we head up the trail, then stop just before we can see Mt. Jumbo. They will be waiting at this spot when return from our swing through the meadow.

            Thirty minutes later we reach the meadow. The sun has already disappeared behind Mt. Juneau even though dusk will last for three more hours. I often wonder why naturalists haven’t named this place “Dusk” rather than given it the name of an early explorer. 

Winter Gift

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Early this morning, while crouching next to our kitchen heater, waiting for the coffee pot to finish its waking magic, a local radio announcer promised listeners a day of wind, rain and snow. 

For three hours I expected first snow, then rain to blur our house windows. But the sun flooded the neighborhood, making spruce trees throw shadows onto the moss-covered roof across the street.  We might just have enough time to walk to the mouth of Fish Creek while the sun still lit up the glacier and mountains rising on the other side of Fritz Cove. 

            This close to the shortest day of the year, much of Douglas Island sits in gray light. But on clear winter days, unblocked sunlight brightens the snow covered mountains on the mainland, making them almost too bright to view from Fish Creek. 

            The little dog and I walk across a creek bridge still slick with winter ice and cruise through a grey forest towards Fritz’s Cove. Normally, I’d be frustrated by the flat, dull light and the lack of birds. I’d be aggravated that we can hear the cries of hidden eagles and another bird of prey but not see them.  But when we reach a spit that offers views of the glacier reflected in the creek waters, the absence or presence of birds no longer seems to matter. 

Aki Doesn’t Forget When it Was Dangerous

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“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel…”

Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy

As Aki and I moved up Basin Road and cross the old wooden road bridge, I feel like we are almost entering wilderness. Behind us, a string of old miner’s homes line the road that in a few minutes would take a hiker past 100-year-old churches to Downtown Juneau. Ahead is a gravel road lined by a deep creek valley on one side and a steep, tree covered slope on the other. Mount Juneau seems to be climbing out of the creek. Two strong streams flow down the mountain side to dump into Gold Creek.

You can barely hear the creek today. Only a raven’s croak breaks the true silence. Years ago, mining trucks hauled gold ore down this wide trail. You wouldn’t be able to hear the trucks over the sound of ore crushers that operating 24 hours a day. Later water blasters reduced the valley to gavel rubble to get the last hidden grains of ore to market. The signs of such attacks on nature are just hidden beneath layers of new growth.

We take a little footbridge across Gold Creek and start downstream on the old flume trail. A channel under the trail still carries water from Gold Creek to a small hydro plant on the edge of the old Native community. Aki throws on the brakes shortly are we head down the flume. Fifteen years ago, she smelled a bear walking up the trail. Even though she has chased many of them away while walking other trails, she froze when she smelled the Gold Creek bear. Each time we start the flume trail I hope she will have a change day and keep moving at me side. But each day, including this one, I have to carry her to the trail’s end. The little poodle still honors that powerful bear. 

Bad Weather, Good Views

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My last post described the minor adventure Aki and her human family had walking toward the glacier. When not checking out deposited dog scents or playing tag with a Jack Russell terrier, she guarded and tried to guide her people. She stayed on station even as rain soaked her fur. Today, I want to explain why I found the wet and gray landscape beautiful enough to enjoy the walk even if the dog stayed home, warm and dry.

            City, farm or dessert people should be blown away, like an old rain forester, by yesterday’s pure-white clouds as they slow danced across the face of a mountainside of Sitka spruce? They would have enjoyed looking at our snake of blue glacier ice slip between mountains to touch the lake? I know they would miss the appearance of full sun against winter-blue sky. I do. But they’d appreciate the more subtle beauties? 

            I am saddened by how the string of warm, wet days have reopened the glacier’s lake by melting away covering ice. It also melted almost all the snow that just last week decorated the glacial forest. But now all eyes will be drawn to the parts of the lake now reflecting mountain peaks and the glacier’s blue-green river of ice.  

After the Storm

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I wasn’t even sure why we drove out here. For days, inches of rain slammed the rainforest. Six people from a nearby village disappeared when muddy landslides hammered their little town. No one died in Juneau but there were some close calls. 

            When we left the parked car, Aki’s other human and I were expecting more snow or rain to fall. The just finished storm melted the lake ice, which surprises us. So does the absence of wind that would otherwise prevent the lake surface from reflecting the glacier and its surrounding mountains. 

            Slick ice still covers most of the glacier trail. I’d fall often if I wasn’t wearing ice cleats  until we leave the main trail to walk onto an ice free peninsula. I thought that we were the only users until Aki stumbles onto a tiny Jack Russell dog and its human owner. After the sniffing each other, the dogs tear around us, taking turns chasing and barking. Later, they will ignore each other when we meet on another icy section of the trail. They just lead their human charges slowly back to their cars.    

Harvesting Before the Storm

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We are out to collect seaweed for the garden, not look for stunning sky or breaching whales. As we left the house the weatherman said we were about to be hit by a couple of days of heavy rain. This time of year, with the temperature well above freezing it, rain would wipe out the snow layer. When the temperature dropped back, ice-slick ice would cover our streets and trails. I wanted 20 gallons of seaweed spread around out garden before that happened. 

            Other gardeners had already carried off all the seaweed from the first beach we checked. I’d gotten lots of seaweed off this beach before the covid virus reduced job opportunities for the local. Now they do more hunting and gardening. They must have snatched away all the seaweed from this and every other roadside beach.

            We find a thick blanket of detached seaweed on the last beach we could check. It required a bit of a walk but it was worth it. In a few minutes we filled four big buckets with rock weed, leaving me plenty of time to watch bald eagles circling in the nearby sky before diving down to pluck edible things from the sea. 

Calm, if Icy

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Slick ice topped with a layer of rainwater covers the trail along Fish Creek. By having metal ice grippers secured on my boots, I can move safely down the trail. Aki’s paws slip a little with each step but it doesn’t slow down her progress. Together we manage to reach a little pond that fills with spawning king salmon each summer.

            The salmon all died months ago. Now no ducks cruise the pond. Most of the pond is still covered with frozen ice. After passing the pond, the little dog and I take another icy trail down to the mouth of the creek where the glacier and the surrounding mountains are reflected by the creek’s calm waters. 

Evidence in the Snow

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It’s been a while since Aki and I walked on this trail. The government makes it illegal to walk with dog on it until the bears leave to hibernate. That has happened. The trail takes you through a forest of young spruce trees. Not too many decades ago, the land was too compressed by the shrinking glacier for the spruce.

            Soon we drop down a short trail to Mendenhall Lake where a well packed trail heads toward the beginning of Mendenhall River. We see few people but lots of wild animal tracks. A coyote left many of them. I wonder that the little hunter was be attacking. Then we spotted the tracks made by a snowshoe hare running for its life.