I should have known better than choose a North Douglas trail for today’s walk. On this Sunday afternoon with a lot of visitors in town for the folk festival, the attraction of a minus 3.5 foot tide has filled the trailhead parking areas to overflowing. Even the waters Fritz Cove are crowded with boats targeting feeder king salmon. Trying to ignore my whinny little dog, I head to a trail unaffected by tides.

I expected to find the parking lot for this mountain meadow trail empty but every space but one is taken. Men with hunting dogs and shotguns wander toward the trees where grouse have been know to roost. It’s too late for the snow and too early for muskeg wildflowers but Aki has the dogs to distract her. I am drawn to small islands of beauty things like skunk cabbage and the bleached grain of standing-dead pines. The yellow skunk cabbage flowers provide the only vibrant color on the meadow until I spot the splash of red from the exposed breast of an American robin. Otherwise it is a soft, gray day that offers silence until the first hunter fires.

Aki is uneasy this morning. She throws on her brakes just before stepping onto the old Basin Road trestle bridge. Another dog passes us on to way to Perseverance Trail and my little dog trots after her. Aki halts after we cross the bridge. Hoping that she will change her mind again, I ignore her and search the slopes of Mt. Juneau for mountain goats. If there, they should be easy to spot in the strong sunlight illuminating the mountainside. I can’t find them. The snow that fell on the ridges last night must have driven them down toward the creek. Maybe they found some fresh greens in a place hidden from our view.

The little dog starts up the road after a few minutes but shows little interest in my plan to climb to the Perseverance overlook. She must smell scents left by a passing bear. In a normally year, I’d attribute her shyness to something else but since I can spot other signs of spring, it would not be surprising to find a bear emerging from winter hibernation. Already the alder limbs are bent down with blossoms and fuzzy catkins decorate the willows.

I choose this hike through the Treadwell ruins for convenience. We usually save the trail for days when the large cottonwoods and old mining buildings are needed to protect us from wind-driven rain or snow. This morning, sunshine reaches through the winter-sparse canopy to light up the electric green tree moss and enflame the ends of the little dog’s fine hair to make visible her aura.

The beach is empty when we reach it. Two ravens burst from their roosts across the glory hole and fly over our heads. Must be a slow day for corvids. I look without success for the seal that usually swims off the beach but find only a scoter and one Barrow golden eye. Because the flooded glory hole looks tropical on a sunny day like this, I lead Aki up a trail leading to a cliff edge that will offer us the perfect view of its water. Far down below the cliff edge, the seal surfaces out of the green of the hole and looks at the beach where we were buzzed by the ravens. I am surprised at how long the seal stays on the surface until it turns and looks directly at us and slips back into the hole. Can a seal see a poodle and her human a quarter-mile away? The answer must be “yes.” It’s the only explanation for the seal’s behavior.