Category Archives: peaceful isolation

Spring’s Promise on the Solstice

Leave a reply

Aki and I lean into the wind of a building storm. This morning the weatherman promised it wouldn’t arrive until 3 this afternoon. Yet here it is at 10 am, blocking our view of the valley with its snow thickened clouds. Behind us the glacier  and icebergs scattered about the barely frozen lake still glow several shades of azure blue. The storm will dampen the display with inches of new snow.

It’s time to move quickly for I am dressed for the rain, not winter but I stop to inspect a small blot of white on a willow branch closed up in winter brown. It’s a pussy willow soon to be damaged by the return of winter. There is no denying its soft beauty which makes my knowledge of its fate almost painful. With gloves off I can feel its softness and do, forgetting for a moment the fast moving storm. Aki stirs with impatience and and looks up with eyes filled with judgment. She can smell the coming snow.

The pussy willow is a fitting gift on this shortest day when winter reigns so I thank the willow for reminding me of spring. Then I feel foolish for elevating it from plant to sentient being. Better to thank the creator for the promise of sun’s return and for sending the storm that brings us this solitude. Aki and I have the glacier and its lake to ourselves.

Alone we crossed the dormant nesting ground of  Arctic Terns, now enjoying summer in another hemisphere. Alone we catch the reflection of cast off icebergs in thin sheets of water on the lake ice.  With only Aki I touched spring before it’s covered over again by winter snow.

Road Less Traveled

Leave a reply

We walked this trail when sun on fresh snow brought the forest a gilded opulence. At times the wind roars through these woods to rip 100 year old spruce roots from the ground so they crash into the undergrowth. Today it offers a quiet solitude and passage protected from the mixed snow and rain we drove through to reach the trailhead.

As Aki sniffs for clues of animals past I look for old friends now standing bare of snow—trees with twisted trunks supporting branches curving like the arms of ballet dancers. Some look ready to move like Tolkien’s Treebeard. Others have given way to rot and wind. Overhead a moderate wind plays a simple song in the canopy.

We pass a small pond almost entirely covered by thin ice.   Four Mallards explode off its open water when I switch on my camera. This is the third or fourth time four mallards have shot into the air at our approach. The other escapes took place along other trails but I still wonder if each time involved the same gang of ducks. With them gone, we tentatively explore edge of the pond ice. It is more opaque than that covering every pond in the moraine last week but no less beautiful. Somehow dime sized ice domes have formed on the pond ice surface. Each manages to sparkle in the gloaming.

Leaving the woods a half a mile from the car we start walking toward it on the North Douglas Highway. Up ahead two cars slow and then stop and I think they have spotted a deer. The occupants hop out with saws, not guns, looking for Christmas trees.  It’s raining hard now. As the wind rises, they stand and compare the young growth along the forest edge as if they were shopping in a LA Christmas tree lot. God Blessed them as Alaskans. God bless everyone.

Snow and Geese

Leave a reply

I am thankful that this dry forest trail offers firm footing for the steep descent to the wetlands. Aki, with her soft paws and hard nails doesn’t care. She shoots ahead, encouraged by the conversation of Canada Geese filling the air. The shot of a 10 gauge shotgun silences the geese and dampens Aki’s ardor.

We picked this trail for its lack of hunting opportunities.  I’d tell Aki shotgun pellets can not reach us here but she wouldn’t believe me. The geese must understand since 300 of them have hunkered down on a mud bar just offshore.

It’s dead calm with high overcast skies when we reach the beach, A scattering of snow flakes float by on the their way to the beach, now expanding with the ebbing tide. The flakes promise a storm as do the pure white clouds quickly obscuring the glacier and its mountain escorts. It hits faster than I thought possible, covering the beach with potato chip sized flakes. We spot a small skiff floating down on the geese on the outgoing tide. “Somebody is going to bag a Christmas Goose,” I tell my self just before as snow shields the birds from the hunter’s view.   Their boat passes by without a shot.

I’m loving the fat flakes of snow and the way they quickly transform familiar beach shapes. This spruce stump, roots facing the sky turns into a frosted Hobbit hole; that plane of sand, a winter stubble field.  The snow silences everything but the ocean swell, which produces a surprisingly deep base sound when it hits the beach.

Just offshore a seal moves above the water surface, in this light a body-less head.  Closer in a common loon pops to the surface then floats off with the tide. The storm is passing now and the clouds over Douglas Island part enough to reveal a rough patch of pale blue sky. Then, hunters embedded across channel restart their war on birds. This doesn’t bother the geese in their splendid isolation on the mud bar but it does worry Aki. She insists on continuing down the beach, which would mean walking a five mile loop to get back to the car. We reach a compromise that has me carrying her to where the forest trail begins. She looks foolish and I feel the same as 300 geese cackle at our passage.

Embracing the Darkness

1 Reply

Under clear skies the sun would have lit up the summit of Mt. Juneau at 8:35 AM. We wouldn’t see any sunshine at sea level until an hour or so later.   The sun would then bounce along the peaks of Douglas Island, make a partial ellipse of Mt. Jumbo, and drop a half hour or so before the official sunset time of 3:06 PM.  I think we had clear skies all of one day this month but most have played like today, a symphony of gray.

We rain forest dwellers embrace the gray all year and the darkness each winter. Other approaches lead to insanity or a quick exit to the Lower 48. Aki and I are prepared to embrace it all as we start across a moraine trail that leads to the Mendenhall River and then to the glacier.  Driving in the dark we reach the trailhead as the dusk that usually lights our mornings is building. Aki reluctantly leaves the car, chilled by the sounds of war coming from our nearby gun range. Nothing says Sunday morning at the gun club like group target practice with hunting rifles.

After working through some young woods we reach the river, now a dark green snake moving past snow covered gravel bars. From here it looks to have sprung directly from the glacier that looms above it. Only an immature bald eagle can share the beauty but he looks away from the river and into the forest below his roosting tree.

The trail takes us away from the river and along a lake where last Fall shotguns fired over duck decoys startled Aki into the woods. Today she walks with tail down until we pass beyond the lake.

I find the tracks of a Great Blue Heron when the trail starts paralleling the river again.  During yesterday’s rain storm it stood along a now dry rivulet, back to the river.  Its now frozen tacks are crisp as you would expect from such a patient hunter. I wonder why it struck a stalking pose here, which offers only snow and mud.

Noticing an unfrozen section of the river beginning to glow I look up and see sunlight trying to muscle through the gray sky.  The sun manages to send diffused beams bouncing across the river until surrendering to the clouds. Later, on the way back to the car we watch a similar struggle in the skies above an alder lined pond.  After that, it’s all gray until night at 3.

Art Ice

Leave a reply

The State Museum in Juneau once hosted an exhibit of wonderful ceremonial masks by Yupik (eskimo) carvers.  Most represented tundra spirits. My favorite was one honoring the spirit of bubbles rising to the surface of the water. It made me think of driving a small dog team over quickly frozen ice near Bethel. The dogs pulled the sled over a mural of tea tinted ice seasoned with suspended plant strands and bubbles. On one trip we passed over a muskrat swimming under the ice to its home. This week’s hard freeze following a long thaw dotted the moraine and troll woods near Juneau with pockets of such magic.

The ice was too fragile to support Aki’s light body so we shirted each patch, passing in wonder each visual offering. At least I experienced wonder. Aki, not so much. She is the practical partner—out to avoid danger and wet feet. She doesn’t care about the concentric lines that form around the puddle edges. Each one a former boundary between ice and the still liquid surface of the puddle. She ignores the collogue of fallen leaves and still golden grass stalks trapped under the windows of ice. She does chase a small dark rodent, which scares me a bit as anything that size in these woods other than a squirrel is generally ill tempered.  Today Aki and the “prey” part in peace.

Moving past the struts of a rusted out VW Beetle rising out a newly frozen pond, we move further into the woods. The snow is still soft here making the travel harder. Soft gray light on his overcast day makes it difficult to follow the trail until we reach a well packed stretch. Relaxing I drift into that almost transcendental state awaiting those who don’t mind getting a little lost and don’t fear wild things.  Time passes then I almost jam my shin into willow arcing low over the path, which continues unaltered beneath the human barrier. We are deep in the troll woods now. I’ve been following one of the beaver’s logging roads.  They can pass unhindered beneath it. I have to step over.

I’ve been led down with rodent path before and soon have us back on a human trail but not before crossing some free flowing water courses. I pitch Aki gently over each before making my own leap. She arrives at the car with dry paws. I have wet boots.

 

Winter Sits Down so Fall can Dance

Leave a reply

Rain rather than snow spots the windshield as Aki and I head out the road. We don’t complain for the weatherman promised heavy rain that would have melted all snow. Instead we have uncertain drizzle that merely shrinks the pack.

Gun shots block out the moving river’s sound at the trailhead.  Deciding that the trail will not lead us into a hail of bullets I pull on snow shoes while Aki assumes a defensive stance at my side.  When, I wonder. did she learn to identify gunshots with danger?  The noise soon ends confirming my suspicion that it came from young hunters emptying their guns before the trip home.

Now naked of snow, the old growth spruce lining the trail rise starkly from white ground. Last weekend this would have been a place of winter wonder. Today it offers simpler fare; yellow green moss wrapped around tree branches. prismatic bags of snow melt hanging from each twig, and the sound of water courses resurrected with snow melt. I think of a doctor announcing the mother’s death in child birth, cushioning the blow with news that the child will survive. Then I feel shame. That is tragedy and this is another rain forest day where winter and fall whirl in and out of our lives with each change in wind direction.

The shrinking snow pack shows sign of a recent wind storm. In the deep woods we have to duck under a broken cottonwood trunk and we find its beautifully shaped leaves in scattered pattens on the trail. We also find chunks of moss and lichen covered branches on the ground after being blown out of the canopy.

Taking advantage of the freedom provided by snowshoes I move off trail and onto a meadow drained by a now charged stream. We cross very fresh tracks of a deer that had to drag its rear hooves over the snow surface.  He is very near. Aki stares across the stream and warns me of the deer’s presence with a bark. Wanting to reduce the animals’ stress I backtrack to the woods and we take the trail to the river.

The tide is out but we find little action on the river’s sand bars. A single bufflehead duck rides a stiff current toward the sea and I wonder if he is that last of the gang I watched float past an eagle at this same spot in the fall. Later we findt the rest of his raft fishing in some eddies up river.

We climb a rise which offers a cruising eagle’s view of the river. Almost all color has drained from the landscape below. I concentrate on the pans of broken river ice melt on the higher sand bars where they were left by last night’s falling tide.  Aki leans against my leg, eyes turned back the way we came, watching my back.

Beach Walk in the Dark

Leave a reply

 

Our friends from Sitka could be home in 40 minutes if they took the plane. Instead they chose the Alaska Marine Highway MV Taku, which won’t reach Sitka for 16 hours.  We dropped then at the ferry terminal long before sunrise and then walked the edge of a wide crescent shaped beach in the dark.  Last night’s flood tide wiped the beach clean of snow so we are left with the choice of walking on dark sand or the snow brightened forest trail. We take the trail at first, thankful to have it to ourselves.

Later we drop onto the beach and listen to ducks complain near the surf line. Aki ignores then but I listen, trying to determine if they are exchanging information or expressions of frustration that we woke them up at this unnatural hour. The sea begins to carry reflective light—enough to allow us to spot a couple of seals cruising just off shore.

We can’t expect true daylight for hours yet but the morning dusk is winning it battle with the night and soon we can spot islands and low tide reefs as well as the horizon. Eagles stir in the growing light and move off in search of a morning meal.

For a brief moment we alone share this beach country with winter hardy gulls and two harlequin ducks.  Then, offshore the Le Conte ferry moves up Lynn Canal on a run to Haines, bright electric light pouring from its forward lounge. When it moves out of sight we have only the grayness of a stretching day spiced with white flakes of falling snow.

Thanksgiving

Leave a reply

The first steps of the year in snowshoes always leave me discouraged.  It lasts until I find the rhythm and adjust the pace of travel.  Only snowshoes will work this morning. A series of nasty North Pacific lows have buried us in two feet of snow.  Strong winds pushed the stuff into the woods so nothing changes when we move from open moraine into the troll woods.  This first snow of the year has enough cohesion to drape white thick blankets over the trail railing.

I find the rhythm quicker than Aki who hangs back 20 feet and occasionally glances toward the car with a look of cautious hope on her face. Has she out grown the puppy joy that plunging head first into deep snow used to bring?  She did turn 5 last week. We have this place of beauty to ourselves so I move deeper into the woods. Eventually she takes station a foot behind the tail of my snowshoes.

No tracks mark the snow before we crest a low ridge and drop into the beaver flooded land. Then we see snowshoe hare tracks everywhere. Trail side alders hear heavy loads of snow. Those overcome by it lean low over the path so I have to duck under or turn back. At one of these barrier trees Aki bursts forward to roll wildly in the trail. Distracted I rise up too quickly and discharge a bucket of snow onto my head. Some manages to fall between my jacket and shirt collars. If Aki finds this funny she doesn’t show it on her poodle poker face.

My goal is the troll woods with its legion of moss transformed trees. We turn back before there when we come to the recent tracks of a wolf crossing the trail. Back at the car I pull golf ball sized snow balls from Aki while watching another snow storm move over the glacier. Its blue ice glows beneath a thickening layer of snow.

Winter in Autumn

Leave a reply

Today we get a taste of winter between autumn storms. No sun reaches us on the North side of Douglas Island even though it is after nine in the morning.  With the temperature in the 20’s Aki and I move rapidly through the woods for warmth.

The temperature drop gave forest moss a crunchy texture and formed a thick ice skim on the forest ponds. Those plants still sporting green look like overdressed fools in a hardware store. Their practical neighbors already wear their winter gear.

Nearing the beach we see Shaman Island through a screen of trees. The sun shines there but not on the beach.  Looking from this dark place over water to the light flooded island, I feel like a witness at the universe’s birth.  The low angle light of dawn reveals so much truth—-the grain in the island’s cliff, the number of each tree and bush. Clarity fades as the sun climbs and an Alaska Ferry moves past Shelter Island on its way to Haines. In between a lone sea lion breaks the surface of Lynn Canal.