Back to the familiar with Aki—the trails on North Douglas Island. Unlike the lush summer conditions I experienced on my Vancouver Island bike tour, Juneau is tasting fall. You can see it in the berries, ripe, soft, almost sweet.You can feel it in the cool moist air still carrying a trace of last night’s rain storm. Already understory plants yellow and leaves fall. Soon the gray, wet, despair producing monsoons will come and stay until we pray for snow. Aki, although not a big fan of heavy rain, is more accepting than I of fall time in the rain forest. October I dream of desert dry; November I search the web for cheap flights south. But today, I pick a cup of full of perfectly red, round huckleberries that will enrich my lunch. Aki contents herself by chasing squirrels.

Yesterday the booms of fireworks would have swept over this mountain valley. The false colors of starbursts would have humbled the yellow marsh marigold and the reddish berry flower. Today the flowers shine without competition, as do the water drops clinging to grass and broad leaf plants. A parade of dogs, children, and people move past us on the narrow boardwalk trail. Aki and I step off the trail to let them pass, even the guy talking to his girl on a cell phone. I want to eavesdrop—-to learn if he shares the beauty of the place or just asks her to pick up a half rack of beer at Kenny’s Liquor. I could almost forgive him if he told his lover about this water drop and its neighbor, the berry blossom that mimics a Japanese lantern.

The rain started at 6 AM and has fallen since in a steady drum beat. Already, it has loaded the canopy of this old growth forest with water. Concentrated in fat drops at the edge of spruce needles, the rain drops with a thud on Aki and I.

I chose this walk for its usual protection from wind and rain, something it does not provide us this morning. But, we do have broad skunk cabbage leaves that reach for their cousins over the trail and glisten even under dense canopy. Raised water bubbles on spruce needles shine like low grade jewels and magnify the things to which they cling.

Walking along the gentle woods that border Mendenhall River, I let myself day dream about a harlequin duck I watched yesterday as it floated on a back eddy of Gold Creek. It was a male with powder blue beak and bold slashes of slate blue and chestnut brown feathers on face and body. The duck could not hear me or my little dog over the noise of the swollen creek. So I stood, like a well hidden spy and watched the duck, so far away from the salt water where his kind feed. Was he trapped in this deep creek valley, unable to find a safe flight path out? Was he an angry teenager runaway or a daredevil taking a break from a dangerous whitewater descent? I wanted to wait for the duck’s next move until Aki showed impatient with every muscle of her 9 pound body.

This morning an alert Aki patrols ahead then strikes a guard dog pose next to a trailside clump of devil’s club. Each branch of the thorny plant holds a chalice of spring-green leaves too porous to capture the morning sun.

We have sun today in Juneau and warm temperatures but also wind. A sirocco blew allow our plant starts out of the greenhouse and drives me into sheltered places. This afternoon, Aki and I walk through the trees of Treadwell that grow over the ruins of the old mining town of the same name. The woods look different in sunshine, almost bleak, compared to the moist lush greenness of rainy days. Now it is a place where drama comes in the form of shadows thrown by bare trees and the intense yellow-green of skunk cabbage blossoms.

It’s low tide on the bordering beach so we’d have to cross a fair bit of fine sand to reach the water. Aki acts like passing over it would as hard as crossing the Lawrence’s Devil’s Anvil. I agree and follow her back into the woods.