Category Archives: Juneau

An Unexpected Moment of Solitude

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I am standing on skis in the middle of the ice-covered Mendenhall Lake. Aki is several hundred meters away, trailing her other human as she skate skis toward the glacier. In a minute or so the little dog will break back and sprint to me. But for now I am alone, warm under the spring sun in a place so quiet I can hear my pulse beating a tattoo.

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Even in a small town like ours that has no industry but tourism moments of silent solitude are rare. They usually occur when bad weather keeps everyone else inside, or when the little dog and I are deep in the woods. Today, perhaps thanks to the concern of others about the safety of the ice, I am alone. It’s wise to keep off the ice after long sunny days and early-spring temperatures have weakened it. I didn’t walk onto the ice during yesterday’s walk with Aki due to worry about ice thickness. But it froze hard last night and the tracks of skiers laid down yesterday tempted me to give it a try.

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Little Mysteries

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Aki rooted out a treasure and she won’t give it up. We are near Skater’s Cabin after having started a walk along the edge of Mendenhall Lake. My little dog keeps herself between her prize and me. I manage to approach close enough to see that it is the heel of an old baguette. How it came to be buried in inches of snow is a mystery.

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I walk on, pondering another mystery—why no one else is here. Morning sun shines on the still frozen lake and the glacier. No clouds obscure the Mendenhall Towers or Mt. McGinnis. The temperature hovers around 40 degrees. In an hour or two the snow will soften enough to make walking on it a struggle. But now it is still firm thanks to last night’s freeze.

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Having forgotten Aki and her lump of French bread, I turn around and spot the little poodle-mix on the other side of inlet I just crossed. She is just crunching down the last of the bread. She squints in my direction and then tears across the inlet. In seconds she is at my feet. A second more and she is trotting ahead, looking for adventure or another treat.

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Wetland Eagles

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To avoid heavy dog traffic on our normal Fish Creek trail, I lead Aki down one I haven’t explored for at least 20 years. It passes through a second growth forest. A generation ago, someone had cut every old growth spruce or hemlock on this streamside land. Today only spruce with 5 or 6 inch thick trunks grow jammed together so tight that their combined canopy blocks out sunlight. No understory plants can survive the resulting darkness.

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After sliding along an icy trail through the second growth, the little dog and I drop onto the wetlands in time to watch a bald eagle flush fifty mallards from a stream eddy. If the eagle’s goal was to nail one of the plump ducks for dinner, he failed. With empty talons it lands next to another eagle that might be it’s mate. At any rate he doesn’t receive a warm welcome.

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The disturbed ducks circle over Fritz Cove and then return to their protected stream eddy. A little further onto the wetlands we find ourselves surrounded by a gang of robin red breasts. (American Robins). Most hunt the grasslands for food but a few hop around in a showy fashion between stints of freezing into statutes like children do when playing Simon Says.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA            Wondering why the eagles don’t hunt the robins rather then skittery ducks, I climb onto a earthen dike that surrounds a small pond. Spruce have colonized the top of the dyke. The ground beneath one is covered with eagle down and white splats of the big predator’s poop. Just down wind is a scattering of mallard feathers.

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Natural Recycling

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Aki and I reunited this morning. Last week, while her humans traveled, she hung out in a dog haven. But rather than her usual dash ahead into the rain forest the little poodle-mix looks at me as if for guidance. She hesitates when I start down the trail. But soon she is sniffing, and peeing, and trotting like always.

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With things back to normal I can enjoy being back in the rain forest. The thick ground layer of snow that fell two days ago is shrinking as the sun climbs into a blue sky. Above the white ground, a mini-forest of spruce sprigs covers the top edge of a wind-blown spruce, their roots pulling nutrients from the heart of the dead old growth tree. One or two of the tree babies on this nursery tree will eventually crowd the others out until their roots reach the ground.

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Almost all of the spruce and hemlock trees in the forest rooted first on a back of a downed log. Sometimes the new tree forms a root that curls around the outside of the nursery log before reaching the ground. One hundred years later, long after the nursery log has rotted totally away, nutrients will flow over a hundred feet up the trunk of a spruce or hemlock through a root retaining the shape of the tree that gave it life.

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The Cruelest Month

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Rain soaks into Aki’s gray fur and makes my parka glisten. It slickens the already traitorous trail ice and softens what snow remains in the forest. It falls from clouds that deny us any mountain views. I’d feel claustrophobic if not the old growth trees that appear to be keeping the heavy, wet skies from collapsing on the little dog and I.

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We are in the tweens—between snowy winter and the soft green spring. This year March, not April may be the cruelest month.

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End of Winter

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Aki sits in my lap in friend’s car. We are on the look out for winter. Cross-country skis rattled in the back. We found plenty of ice on the first trail we tried. Giving up on that one, we headed out to Eagle Beach in hopes of seeing some migratory waterfowl. The day before a snow goose was spotted in a formation of transiting Canada geese.

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The tide was out when we arrived, giving the migrants little water to rest on. We walked along the river on a trail of mud and dead grass. Two skiers sat near the river’s mouth eating lunch. They had returned form an aborted ski trip to Point Bridget trail after finding it free of snow. “You go another mile on the road and there is no snow.” Looking around the snow free meadow I realize that it is time to put away the skis.

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Painting Fog at the Shrine

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There is a “no dog allowed rule” in this cabin so Aki stayed home with her other human. The cabin is on the grounds of the Shrine of St. Theresa, which is north of Juneau. Outside of the cabin plein-air painters stand behind their easels. Some hold brushes. Others load oil paint onto a palette knife. Minutes before they had Pearl Harbor and fog-shrouded mountains beyond as their subject. Now a wall of sun-charged fog obscures everything but a beach in the foreground. This is enough for most of the painters to work with. The others head back to their cabin for coffee and community.

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I walk on a trail that leads south along Favorite Passage. Golden eye and harlequin ducks hunt the outflow of a small salmon stream for smolt. Beyond them, more diving ducks fish the deeper water. A rowdy Stellar sea lion rips up the water’s surface.

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The fog thickens briefly and then melts until only a strip along the shore of Shelter Island has survived the sun.

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Nervous clouds cringe above Gastineau Channel as Aki and I drive out toward the glacier. Ignoring the little dog’s whining, I take us on a detour to Sandy Beach where the sun is about to move into a patch of blue sky. An optimist would describe the scene as “storm ‘s end” or “the first day of spring.” Being more a realist, I think it is a sucker hole. That’s what lost pilots call temporary breaks in clouds that could close over the plane the minute it drops into the hole. The sun disappears behind a wall of clouds as we return to the car.

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Gray dominate the sky over Mendenhall Lake when we pull up to the trailhead. But shafts of sunlight are illuminating the glacier. The sun appears to melt the clouds obscuring Mendenhall Towers. We might be able to ski across the lake but after the recent stretch of warmish weather, I don’t want to chance it. I follow Aki onto the ski track that winds around the campground.

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On a sunny day the trail would be full of skiers and their dogs. But not today. The little dog and I will only see four skater skiers and, disappointingly for Aki, no other dogs. The clouds will disperse and coalesce. Light snow, soon to be rain, will splatter on my windshield as I drive back to town.

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Peterson Creek

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Aki and I start the Ides of March on the Douglas Island Bridge. Normally she drags her paws on to the bridge. But today she tries to bully me into letting her walk across it. A murder of loud-mouthed crows watches our battle of wills. I know I shouldn’t care what these dudes think about the little dog or me. But I am still bothered by the attention. Aki eventually backs down and we return to the car. It’s time to check out Peterson Creek.

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At first glance the creek looks to be ice-free. Over a foot of golden brown water runs between the creek banks, reflecting the mottled bark of the creek side alders. But ice stills covers the creek bed, providing a white background for the golden water. It’s still a winter scene but spring can’t be far away.

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We cross over the creek and walk down to a beach bordering Stephens Passage and climb a small rocky headland. Aki gives me her “This is so boring” look. I will accommodate her but first I want to study something that looks like an animal’s backbone trapped in rock. It could be fossil, evidence of life from a time long past.

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Brotherhood Trail

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In summer this parking lot is full of cars and buses ready to take river rafters back to their cruise ships. Today it is empty except for an abandoned Buick and one pickup truck. When Aki and I start down the brotherhood bridge trail, we run into a disheveled young man struggling to push a bicycle through the soft snow covering the trail. “Sir, I hate to ask, but do you happen to have $5. I have a terrible headache and could really use a drink.” I almost complied to reward his honesty.

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We pass through a small copse of spruce and move onto to a meadow dotted with alders. Disintegrating ground fog partially obscures the alders. As it lifts I can see the alders, which appear to be leafing out, something unexpected in late winter.   But close up I can see that the yellowish green “foliage” are really lichen.

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The lichen hang from every branch and twig. I’ve been told that lichen can’t tolerate polluted air. So their colonies in the meadow alders gives proof of our clean air. But the way that they have spread to almost every part of the tree makes me wonder whether the alders would consider them an infection.

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