Category Archives: Nature

First Light

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Because there is no wind and the temperature has stayed above zero, I brought Aki back to the Fish Creek Delta. Ice still covers the trail so the little dog and I slip and slip on the trail to the pond. The ice layer on the pond is healing after the last thaw.  A layer so thin it is transparent already covers all recently opened water.

            My right index finger burns when I depress the camera shutter button. I wish the sun could hurry its climb up the backside of the ridge that blocks it light. The little dog and I could use a source of heat.

              We will eventually walk in sunlight but it won’t provide much warmth. We will hear several bald eagles but only see one as it flies between a gap in the trees. I will wonder at having the luck to look up at that moment in time to see the eagle. Then I will question whether I wasted my luck on such a far away view of the predator.   

Out The Road

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Aki and I are out the road to get away from the strong winds hammering Downtown Juneau. Usually it is colder out here. But today it is a toasty 15 above F.

            No clouds block the sun. It lights up the snow-covered Chilkat Mountains and brightens the surface of Lynn Canal. Aki squints into the resulting glare as we approach the Peterson Lake outfall stream. Inches of thick ice coat the rocks on either side of the stream. The ice would glow as if lit from within if the sunlight could reach it. Without the sun’s help the ice is reduced to a low-contrast rock coating that make passage impossible, even for the sure-footed little poodle.   

How Bad Do They Smell?

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Aki rarely gets that look on her face—big eyes, pulled back ears and lips—the one I get after smelling something just dead. We had been cruising down the Basin Road trestle bridge. She had just finished a game of tag with two Labradors. I was excited after watching mountain goats foraging on the lower slopes of Mt. Juneau. We were both pleased to have snuck in a hike up the Perseverance Trail before an expected windstorm.  It will bring 75 mile-an-hour gusts, turning the Gold Creek valley into a place where exposed flesh will freeze in thirty minutes. 

After throwing on the brakes and looking horrified, Aki dropped onto the surface of the trestle bridge and moved backwards, one paw at a time. Then she stood normally, except for her eyes. They continued to stare at the horrifying spot. When she finally agreed to move, she walked as far away from the spot as she could without rubbing the bridge railing.            

 I remembered the time Aki and I had stumbled on a crowd of mountain goats under this very portion of the trestle. It was sunrise. We were trying to get in a walk before the wind rose with the sun. A sixty-mile-an-hour slammed us when we were only fifty feet from the house. We had to retreat to a more protected trail that ran along the bottom of the Gold Creek Valley. Just before we crossed the creek, Aki barked. Above us, a dozen mountain goats huddled together beneath the trestle.         

A Calm Pocket

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When Aki and I started up the Gastineau Meadows trail, we had every right to expect a pleasant walk. The sun was making its low arc across a blue sky. Aki could feel it warm her fur. Someone had scraped the accumulated ice off the access road. Then a wind twisted over the Douglas Island Ridge to raise whitecaps on the channel. On its way, it nudged Aki in the rear. Another air stream pushed long plumes of snow off Mr. Roberts.

            Aki ignored the rude breeze. I watched a raven ride a thirty-knot gust up and then barrel roll into a dive. Its silhouette sliced across the face of the sun. 

            Since the wind didn’t discourage the little dog, I refused to turn back to the car. Together we climbed the icy track to the meadow proper. I expected to be hammered by gusts when we lost the protection of the forest. But the meadow air was as calm as a tightrope walker practicing a few feet above the ground.  The lack of expected drama disappointed at first. Then I spotted Aki flying across the still firm meadow snow.

Winter’s Vacation

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On one of January’s last days it’s 37 degrees above zero. Persistent rainfall has eliminated snow from the forest floor except where it has been packed into ice by foot traffic. You see, this week Winter left Alaska to holiday below the 49th parallel. Subzero temperatures made worst by strong winds have people in the Lower 48 are penned down in their homes while we watch our ski trails melt in the rain.

            Aki and I head out to the Fish Creek Delta looking for distractions from the weather. A mature bald eagle, feathers soaked by rain, has positioned itself above to pond. Last week the pond was capped by a solid layer of ice. The fractured flows that remain float up and down with the tides. 

            Aki is soon as soaked as the eagle. She shivers each time I stop to watch the eagle or a small raft of mallards that have moved up the creek with the tide. She doesn’t object when I turn back towards the car. Don’t worry little dog, snow is in the forecast and the temperatures should be in signal digits soon. Winter’s vacation is almost over.

Lucky Ducks

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It was late morning on Sandy Beach. The fog that had dampened noise and limited vision on the beach was breaking up. The eagle that usually hunkers on top of the old mine ventilation shaft was present but quiet. He squinted at the little dog and I as we made our way towards a pair of Beninese mountain dogs. I swear that the eagle stirred with interest as the three dogs met. Aki stretched out before the two hulking dogs, as if offering herself as a midday meal. The tails and ears of the mountain dogs shot up in interest. When they were hooked, Aki slipped out from under their noises and ran circles around them. Apparently disappointed, the eagle turned away. 

            Down channel another bald eagle flapped it way toward the old gold mining town of Lucky Me.  Aki said goodbye to her new buddies and worked the high tide line for scents. I almost forgot about her as I approached two mallard ducks. The hen and drake were fast asleep with their beaks tucked into a nest of feathers on their backs.  They slept through my clumsy approach and the sound of small waves breaking two feet away. 

            Nearby another mallard pair scurried across the surface of the collapsed glory hole, eyeing us nervously as they paddled away. Then a pair of golden eye ducks did the same. The sleeping pair did not awake. The ventilator shaft eagle must have been watching the ducks sleep. It could have easily turned one of them into a meal. Lucky ducks. 

Ignoring Raven

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The empty parking for the False Outer Point Beach promises an empty trail. This doesn’t bother the normally social Aki. It pleases her owner, who enjoys each chance to explore a beautiful place in solitude. Tears are forming in the thick fog that had been preventing us from seeing more than a half-mile of channel water. Through one of them we can see Mt. McGinnis.  Through another a slice of the Chilkat Mountains appears. 

            I’m thankful for the mountain views and the fact that it isn’t raining. It pleases me more that nothing has scared the resident raft of golden eye ducks away from the beach.  Aki stays close to my side as we round the point where an eagle sulks in the bare branches of a spruce snag.  Off shore a man in an open skiff drops a hook baited with a herring into the water. I silently wish him luck in his effort to catch a king salmon, remembering the taste of winter caught kings. 

            The ebbing tide must have left behind some tasteful carrion. A murder of crows, maybe 200 of them, tussles with the local gulls for the goodies. A bald eagle abandons the beach to them and flies over our heads and onto a spruce limb.  From the top of a small boulder, ten feet away, raven lectures the little dog and I.  He follows us down the beach, croaking out his speech. It isn’t welcomed. 

Found Food

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I wonder what Aki would have made of these jellyfish. Hundreds if not thousands of them washed up on the Seaside Beach with the tide. I’ve seen the little dog nose the gelatinousness mass of an Alaskan jelly spread over the gravel of a North Douglas beach. But she never lingered to taste one like she would have a fallen French fry on Franklin Street. 

            Unlike their Alaskan relatives, almost all these Oregon jellyfish are a monochromatic grey-brown. From a distance they look like flat stones on a flat beach.  There are gulls and crows patrolling the beach but none of them shows any interest in the jellyfish corpses. 

            It’s has stopped raining for a moment so I start my Tai Chi exercises, careful to watch the surf line for sneaker waves. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a gull watching me. Other gulls join it. I have the impression that they are looking for something to distract them on this dull, gray day. They are really waiting for me to move so they can sweep down on a ruined fish just beached by the retreating tide. When I do, a cloud of gulls descends on the beach to fight for the scraps. 

Tilamook Head

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This morning, after first coffee, I climbed to the hotel roof to watch the sunrise over the clear-cut forests that line the eastern horizon.  As he has been each other time that I’ve visited the rooftop, the resident gull, a kittiwake I think, was already perched on the top of the hotel’s copula. He tolerated me for a minute and then flew toward the Tillamook Head.  He left before I ask him about the condition of the Tillamook Head Trail. 

            The head is a huge headland that protrudes into the Pacific Ocean. It dominates the view looking south from Seaside Beach. From the hotel rooftop I traced a line of houses on Sunset Blvd that ends at the trailhead. 

            In the afternoon I will get a ride to the trailhead and then hike through a forest dominated by large spruce trees and hemlocks. It will look very much like an Alaska Rain Forest on a day in early spring.  I will feel at home. I will look out at the ocean through a forest gap and see lines of waves lined up like an army intent on slamming into the head. 

Opportunist Crows

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I am still in Seaside, an honorary member of a community of writers that gathers here every January. It’s a group generous with their time, attention and knowledge. But the level of energy that ran through us at the state of this residency is dropping. 

            To recharge, I take walks on the beach. But it lacks the magic of the North Douglas trails back home in Juneau. At first I assigned fault to the multistory structures that crowd the beach. But this is off-season, so they are empty shells reduced to silent silhouettes. Then I have to blame the other beach walkers, who migrated to the strip of sand just soaked by the retreating tide. Even when none of the walkers are close, their footprints and those left by previous beach users turn the beach into a much-used highway. It might be different if I could find an eagle or one could find me. Some of the writers have seen a bald eagle but I have had to make due with gulls and a gang of opportunistic crows.