A tiny golden eye duck, female, the size of a very young one, moves slowly across a small river inlet. Then a bald eagle flies over the little duck, starts to dive on it, then flies off.
Neither Aki or I will see another bird. They have all taken shelter from the rising storm. A little sunlight works though the cloud layer then disappears. When the storm arrives we turn back to the car, already wet from the new rain.
Last week more than five inches of rain fell here. We probably received another five inches in the last three days. Aki and I dressed in our best rain dear and headed out to Auk Rec Bay. I hope the forest will protect us from the rain.
We don’t need any protection when we arrive at the trailhead. The grey skies aren’t dropping any rain. It almost makes me shout joy. I don’t. I might be tempting the rain to return.
The beach is almost empty of pups and their people. Maybe this is why tight knots of surf scoters and Barrow golden eyes work the surf line. In seconds, one of the groups disappears by diving into the water. Seconds later the ducks pop back up, tiny fish already settling into their stomachs. They the heavy rain returns.
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.
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.
Last night one of those five-inch-rains deals started. This morning it is still a storm, not a rain shower. Strong wind shivers the car as we drive out to North Douglas. It turned out to be a bad choice.
A few thousand feet into the forest, we hit the first problem—ten feet of flooded trail. Aki started to cross it first, slowly planting each step. He seems to think that if he slipped he’d be carried downstream by the little flood. This slowed me down, allowing more water to slip into my boots.
We had to pass through many similar puddles, each one soaking Aki’s fur and my boots. The rain soaked my parka and Aki’s head and back. It drove away most of the ducks and gulls. But we did spot the little trio of harlequin ducks nestled near a pile of rocks on the beach.
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.
The trail to Favorite Channel is empty this morning. I am not surprised. Slip ice covers the trail. Without grips, I would have already fallen on it. This is getting to be an old story. They are usually almost always true. This one is.
Every once in a while, Aki and I spot filtered sunlight through snow-burdened spruce trees. A full moon would cast more light in these woods. But hoping to see it reflected in salt water, I lead Aki to the beach. We have to be careful to move down the trail. I have to keep my eyes on the trail to avoid the dangerously icy bits.
Aki lets me walk into the beach alone so she won’t inadvertently chase off any ducks. It’s a wasted effort. The place is empty until two gulls land near the beach. But we can still see a bit of the sun powering through marine clouds to reflect some light on a patch of the offshore water.
The slick-ice trail makes our walk to the beach challenging. It’d be dangerous if I weren’t wearing ice grippers and Aki is a skillful ice dog. We pass the beaver pond. Thanks to the recently snow melt, we can see the just frozen holes that beavers use to leave the pond water. They do that every evening so they can patch holes their pond dam.
We see little on the way to the beach except for the portrait of a dragon’s head formed by receding ice. The beach seems empty of life when we reach it. Then a gang of gulls lands on the gravel about twenty feet away. They take up posts on the tops of exposed rocks and give us the hard stare. I still feel honored, maybe even accepted by the normally careful gulls.
Further down the beach we stumble on three harlequin docks. One, a female, is perched on the water’s edge of a rock watching a gull watching Aki and I. The other two harlequins stand nearby on the beach, also watching the rocky gull. This distraction allows us to get pretty near the ducks until they spot us and take to the water.
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.
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.
Walking with Aki 