We hoped to purchase some solitude and views of Canada Geese by taking this ice covered trail during a rain storm. As expected rain water covers the ice in a glistening clear blanket that would have made the trail unusable but for the  winter’s worth of dropped hemlock needles allowing my boots purchase.

Getting it at a bargain price Aki and I find solitude here broken only by the snuffling of her searching nose, the sound of rain drops hitting my parka hood, mallard chuckles, eagle complaints, and the near hysterical song of geese being driven off shrinking sand bars by a rising tide.

Reaching an open meadow we find a clump of the calming geese feeding alongside the trail ahead. They are all business at first but then one of their unit stops feeding to watch our approach. Aki, no fool she, is not interested in messing with these big wild birds.  Even though we try skirting them at a distance, the geese eventually take flight and move on to the next tidal meadow. Now we hear geese warning calls coming from across the river, giving advanced warning of the approach of several formations of Canada Geese that fly overhead to join their just departed buddies 300 meters away on the other meadow.

Moving across the meadow we reach a gently sloping beach of sand bordering the perfectly still waters of Lynn Canal now reflecting a murder of crows flying toward the river.  A smaller gang of the black birds have assumed station at the top of a beach side spruce to wait for the abundance of low tide.

Aki tears down the trail as if the skiers who made it at the end of storm set the track just for her.  As she disappears around a stand of old growth spruce giants I admire how this old forest friend has been made new by 8 inches of new snow.  Only a heavy storm could force enough flakes through the canopy to blanket the trail. Such a storm ended last night. Now the temperature rises and gentle rain reaches us in the open spots.

Here my skis glide easily down trail so Aki trots behind, dimpling the trail with tracks somewhere in size between those made by the short tailed weasel and those of the wolf that planted his front paws so deeply in the snow while snatching an unfortunately snowshoe hare. Aki confuses the crime scene by walking over it to sniff at the bloody snow.

The old growth forest is cozy on this grey, warming day. While heavy snow drags down their limbs, the spruce still stand at attention as we pass. It’s different when we cross the muskeg meadow dotted with stunted pines and spruce. Snow wraps over their rounded shoulder and weighs down their tips to turn them into refugees fleeing a winter battlefield. The snow starts sticking to my skis and to Aki, slowing our progress.  Picking up the dog, I pluck large snow balls from her fur before scraping the buildup from my skis. Rather than return to good skiing in the old growth we push on to the river meadow and find more sticky snow.

A narrow flood channel cuts across the meadow that fills with river water at high tide. Seeing many exposed sand bars in the river where we enter the meadow I don’t worry that the sticky surface slows our progress toward the channel crossing. I should have taken note when ducks huddling on the bars burst into flight without apparent provocation. They could feel the tide race upriver.

 

This tiny dead spruce, flocked by sun sparkled frost stands alone in the meadow, holding my eye away from its still green neighbors, the blue sky, and mountains rising above the spruce forest.  Dead among so many living things, the diminutive tree stands like a solstice sacrifice, life given up to the sun so it won’t crash to earth in winter exhaustion.

Nearby run the tracks of a loping wolf and those of its prey, the snow shoe hare. Last weekend’s storm coated trees and meadow ground with thick wet snow that hardened in the following temperature drop. Here, where the Taku winds don’t blow, frost feathers form each night on exposed ice, tree and meadow snow. The frost buildup on stiff snow allows me to ski with ease where I please and forms a parchment upon which the forest creatures write their stories of the night.

I’ve already mentioned the wolf and hare. The hare tracks start in willow thickets and pour out onto the meadow in confused trails. One crisp trail made by a least weasel run straight across open ground, while thick concentrations of mice tracks form two foot thick bands between protective spruce trees.

When the sun sets at 2 P.M. Aki whimpers a little from boredom or the growing cold so we turn and I ski away from my tiny spruce, adding our own story in tracks on the meadow.