Even though the town wraps around it, the Wetlands receive few visitors who are not carrying shotguns. There are a few well used dog walking trails that skirt the area but most is empty ground. For Juneauites it is just something to glance at during the morning compute from the Mendenhall Valley bedrooms to the SOB.  (That’s the local name for the State Office Building. Juneau visitors shouldn’t expect the sound of sadness to reach then as they enter the building.)

Back to the Wetlands, where the road noise from Egan Expressway fades very quickly as you walk toward Gasteneau Channel.  Soon into a walk only startled Canada Geese and transiting airplanes will raise the decibel level above a whisper. The whole area can flood during high tide so we always keep a tide book in the car to time visits.

The start of this day of the walk promised spring like weather but delivered gray skies and a chilling wind. We should be in the thick woods by the glacier where the day’s 40 degree temperatures would not have to fight with wind to set the tone. Instead we are crossing a slick patch of ice formed on the Wetlands above the high tide line. Down channel a sunrise streaks the sky with strips of gray and weak orange light.

Aki cruises right over the ice but I must do the tundra shuffling slide or crash to the ground. Even with legs slightly apart, feet parallel, weight evenly distributed I almost fall when my left boot slides over a slight rise in the ice.  I am forced to concentrate only the ice and ignore a Bald Eagle that vocalizes it resentment at our presence on this hunting ground. The slow speed of transit forced by slick ice has a blessing. It gives me the time to appreciate reflected sunrise colors that almost set the ice aglow.

Once off the ice we cross wet grasslands where each dead blade, brown, tan or straw yellow, has been pushed down flat by the recent heavy snow. In the middle of this destruction sits a weathered driftwood tree that has rested here long enough to earn badges of lichen. It lays on its side so that its circle of shallow roots are at a 80 degree angle to the ground. One foolish spruce seedling grows between the skyward pointing roots.  Growing above salt soaked ground, the spruce has no chance of being more than a bonsai decoration to welcome the geese and ducks that will soon be resting here on their north bound migration.

I have mixed feeling about this isolated spruce striving to grow on its precarious perch. It’s is a life wasted but history is full of honorable fools who joined the forlorn hope. I’d admire this tree for its courage and determination if it had a soul. Instead I admire the life force it represents and the sower, nature, that imprinted all spruce seeds with need to root and grow where ever they land. They affirm the preciousness of life. So too, do the birds who each Spring fly thousands of miles to nest.  Tree, birds, man; the need to live drives us all.

Aki is whimpering now so I look down to see the wind bending back her ears and flattening her facial fur. When I stop she holds up a paw as if it to dry it in the cold wind. We’ve reached the deep channel of Duck Creek that cuts us off from the rest of the Wetlands so I grant Aki’s request and turn toward the Sunny Point bluffs jutting into the Wetlands. We walk along them to the car.

Aki finds a long strip of snow perfect for her diving then rolling game. My boots crunch with each step after I join her there sending seven Canada Geese breaking for the sky.  We return to  grasslands when the snow strip ends. Here a paper thin layer of ice lays like a sheet over the tussocks of flattened grass. Only frozen salt water has such flexible strength.  Several things had to happen at the same time to create this. This fragile sheet of ice would not be here if the last night’s high tide hadn’t manage to cover the grass just as the night’s temperature dropped enough to freeze it into this thin white covering.  I wonder at the purpose of covering beaten grass with a beautiful translucent sheet when we hear the nervous cackling of worried ducks huddled 50 feet away. They burst from cover and fly deeper into the wetlands, necks stretched out, willing more speed. Aki looks away as if embarrassed by their cowardliness. If she would understand I would tell her that they are only driven by the will to live.

This gray warm winter day offers little hope for adventure as we leave Chicken Ridge. Our neighborhood ravens might disagree. They sing their croaky songs from high in a nearby Balsam Popular tree while waiting for the melting snow to reveal its treasures.  Behind them low clouds lift to reveal Mt. Juneau wearing a shawl of freshly fallen snow.

We stick to the beach today to avoid a long slog through the wet heavy snow covering the forest trail. Aki charges down to the beach, now exposed at low tide. First she has to cross a 50 foot wide strip of snow that covers the beach between last night’s high tide line and the forest. When up to speed she launches forward into a slide on the snow, rolls, then looks up to show the closest thing to a smile that her the dead panned face dog can display.

While Aki fools about I admire the long strip of alder trees reaching out their branches over the beach. They are a tree best seen standing naked in snow with their subtle gray bark and graceful lines exposed. It’s calm on the beach but the wind rises as we approach False Outer Point. On the way we pass ice columns the color of wine stained amber. Water seeping from the roots of trees on the cliff above formed them during the recent cold snap. On the other side of the cliff we will find similar columns of white and gray ice.

While we round the point, a wind hammers us and raises a sea in Stephens’ Passage. Then we come under a small hail of spruce cones.  I suspect the Red Squirrel pirates that live in the trees growing on the cliff. It is only the wind ripping spent cones from the trees.    We move quickly up the beach to get into the cliff’s lee. A Bald Eagle flies in from the Passage to land on one of the cliff spruce. A a chorus of other eagles just above us in the trees bursts into a song to warn off the new comer. It makes me jump but sends Aki into an excited run along the snow under these eagle trees. She runs not in fear but excitement. Afraid that she might look too much like an eagle’s dinner I call her back.

One of the eagles flies over our heads to an area just offshore. There it glides a hundred feet above the water then goes into a circling dive. Just before hitting the surface the eagle reaches down with talons to snatch dinner from the water. We watch it fly low over the water to the beach, landing just beyond the next headland.

Interested in whether the eagle plucked fish or fowl from the sea I move as quiet as I can to the landing zone. Just before reaching it three sets of parallel tracks distract Aki and I. They form straight lines running at a 90 degree from the water straight into the woods. I don’t realize that the eagle is only a few feet away from us, finishing his tea. When I tell Aki the tracks were made by mink the eagle flies back to a cliff top spruce. We never did learn what died to sustain the birds’ life.

Now the wind begins to reach us,  joined by rain. Clouds drop to cover the mountain tops. It’s time to head home. On the way I watch a huge avalanche roar down Mt. Juneau. Normally we only see moderate ones that involve a rumbling fall of snow down the mountain side. It’s still death to anyone trapped by the fall but for us, common place.  Today avalanche also produces a large and moving white cloud in its downward charge that reaches halfway across Gasteneau Channel before dissipating in the wind.  I’m thankful for this display of natural power that, like the ice columns and feeding eagle, produces a moment of beauty.

(Here is a news story on one of the February 1st avalanches: http://juneauempire.com/local/2012-02-02/avalanche-blocks-thane-road#.TytN1BzllDQ

The most productive series of snow storms in 15 years is ending tonight. Now it rains. If the forecast holds true more rain will fall for days as we watch the beautiful hills of piled snow melt into sad mounds. The city seemed to abandon Chicken Ridge this weekend as the snow formed foot deep drifts between the taller houses and anyone with sense and time left their cars rest under piles of snow and walked to their destinations.  I hung up the shovel after running out of places to pile it. These big storms bring a blessed simplicity along with all that white beauty.

Now the city begins a race with winter to remove the snow overburden from neighborhood streets before the next cold snap turns the berms into cement hard barriers. Already I can hear the power scoops and dump trucks beeping away downtown when Sonny Boy Williamson pauses between cuts on the album playing on our computer. Aki hides out downstairs for she cares little for the blues or the coming rain.

 

From this Mendenhall Wetlands access point we can see Juneau’s only four lane highway and the trash dump.  Five hundred meters away people shop at Walmart. Placing that behind us we plunge into the deep snow covering the portion of the wetlands above the high tide line. The snow fall that started up again last night persists so Aki has to shake often to avoid turning from gray to white.

I picked this hike because it takes you over ground washed clean of snow by last nights high tide, which only peaked 7 hours ago. Unfortunately the storm has already replaced much of what was lost to the tide so we must slog our way down to Gasteneau Channel. With everything covered in white I can’t spot all the walking hazards and soon manage to submerge one boot completely in brackish water.  Aki avoids these pitfalls but refuses to walk ahead of me to show the way. That would mean breaking trail in the soft snow.

Hoping to find it easier going I start across a wide mud bar sporting only a skim of snow. Aki looks doubtful but follows along until my boots sink in several inches of goo to release a smell that could have inspired Dante to write the Inferno. We are halfway across the bar so I push on to higher ground carrying Aki until we reach dry snow. Both of my boots are soaked now. Moving around one of the small spruce islands on the wetlands I spot seven Canada Geese hanging out ahead.  When I slip on another patch of stinking mud they begin in cackle. In minutes they are airborne, quickly disappearing into a wall of falling snow.  Later we will watch 300 more geese break cover and flee, flushed from something on the far side of the wetlands.

My head was down looking for deer tracks when the big flock of geese took flight.  I had just seen on the horizon three or four large animals moving slowing away from us. In this light damped by constant snow it is hard to gauge size and distance but they could have been deer or dogs.   Snow accumulation is flushing some of our deer out of the old growth forest. Early each morning they can be seen walking down city streets to the Gasteneau Channel to feed. I’ve heard takes of deer surviving on sea weed exposed at low tide so maybe that is what draws them to the sea. There is nothing for them to eat today on this wilderness of snow covered mud.