It’s a grey day. Snow flakes that looks like spaghetti floats out of a flat-lit sky. But Aki and are still having a great morning moving through an old growth forest. Yesterday, big crowds of Valentine’ Day lovers stomped through the forest trail, crushing flat the nice ski trail that we used last week. Still, today, we have the place to ourselves.
I stop often and try to photograph the large ice crystals that weigh down the trail-side alder. If the sun burned through the clouds, it might make the crystals sparkle like diamonds in a Los Vegas wedding parlor. But this morning they look faint and grey. I can’t find any of that would catch the eye of most passing walkers. On one of the meadows, I finally find a large formation of obvious snow crystals that have formed the bloated body of a goose with an huge, exposed rear end. It’s that kind of day.
It’s an afternoon for Italian roast coffee and mutted views of Alaskan mountains. That’s how I am seeing and think of things. Aki does not. She sits nearby, giving me the “let’s get going” stare.
Pushing away a little lazy guy spirit that thinks that I should spend the morning drinking tea while looking out the window for the neighborhood raven nest, I leash-up Aki and head out the door. Only a slight breeze stirs the air and the temperature is already in the high 20’s. Then the sun burns through the clouds and I realize that Aki’s was a great idea.
I let her direct me through downtown neighborhoods full of Craftsmen houses. As she does when she is a little upset with me, Aki dog stops every few feet to check scent left by other dogs. Feeling a little guilty about delaying the walk, I turn control over all decision making to her. This improves her mood. It also allows me to discover beauty in buildings that I have taken for granted for years.
Aki turned 14 last Fall. If she were a more normal dog, she would act like she was almost 100 years old. Most folks think she is still puppy. All I know is that she hasn’t started to slow down yet. Today, her other human and I are crossing Mendenhall Lake using cross country skis. The little dog trots just behind me, her little tail beating back and forth like a metronome.
The last time we visited the lake it was several degrees below zero F. Today the air is just below freezing. The air is flat calm and no clouds block the sunshine. We first planned on taking a harder to find, lesser used trail for this morning’s ski because of all the cars parked near our usual trailhead. But the recent sub-zero weather solidified the lake ice. That opened up a path along the lake’s Southern shore.
We never met any other skiers during most of our ski. We saw more tracks left by wild animals than those left by people and their dogs. When checking out one photo after we returned home, I noticed the solo tracks of a red fox left it left while leaving the woods to cross the lake last night. Closer to the start of Mendenhall River, we had to ski over heavier tracks left early this morning by what might have been a lynx.
Seeing the wild animal tracks made me understand better why Aki stops so often to check out scents on the trail—even on new trails like this on lakes that have been used by few dogs. She always wants to know who else is passing through the neighborhood. More than once she had barked discouragement to chase off another wild animal I could not even see. She treed as least four bears. But she seems open to hanging out with other animals. She has even placed herself none-to-nose with a prickly porcupine. Another time, she even dashed across softening lake ice to visit with an otter.
Last night, Aki and I froze in place as a 50 mile-an-hour slammed into us while we left the house. Neither poodle or master had spent much time outside yesterday. We were both intimidated by a heavy wind that had been slamming down 7th Street for a week.
Aki hid under our double bed as I pulled on my warm snow machine suit and beaver hat. I wore both of them when wintering in Western Alaska. They were just the ticket for a walk with the poodle on such a cold night.
Aki, who was hiding under our bed, eventually answered my call for her. After giving me a “you have to be kidding” look, she crawled out. I dressed her in winter-weight gear and she trotted over to the door. After pulling on my heavy-weight mittens, I joined her on the porch, where we both had to freeze in place under the impact of the cold and heavy wind. When it stopped, the little poodle-mix growled at nature and made her way to her favorite place to pee. She kept low to ground to avoid the worst wind gusts, slipping for time to time on street ice that had been polished slick by the wind. I had to freeze into a statue in the high gusts to avoid being blown away in the wind.
We hadn’t intended to do a sub-zero walk this morning. But no wind discouraged us by stirring the country near the glacier. The minus 3 degree temperature (minus 19 C) seemed quite comfortable. Aki dashed onto the Mendenhall Lake and started on the trail to the glacier. We had heard others had posted pictures of a new hollow in the glacier formed from clear, blue ice. I guess the little poodle mix wanted to go check it out.
I told Aki that we didn’t have enough time to reach the glacier and return home before a scheduled meeting. Instead, we shifted over to little-used trail that wound around the glacier moraine. It offered lots of views of the little pocket lakes the glacier left behind as it retreated up the mountains.
On cold winter days, when ice covered lakes allow us a chance to explore new territory, I usually lead Aki off the usual trails. She starts after me when I walk onto Crystal Lake. Then she stops, bogged down in snow. The old puppy starts shivering. It’s like she will freeze if she can’t keep moving.
I dash over to Aki and carry her back to the solid trail. I expect her to ask me to haul her back to car. But she drops out of my arms and trots over to a little alder for a smell of scent left by another pup. She is still a tough little dog.
The temperature of Upper Fish Creek Valley has been dropping for the past few days. Since Aki and I haven’t used the trail in months, I picked it for today’s hike. In the past, the creek has been swollen with water. Other times, the smell of dead, spawned out salmon hangs in the air. I’ve seen sparkling ice cycles lit up by the morning sun. But, until today, I’ve never seen the creak so enslaved by ice.
We can barely hear small holes in the ice mumble as the little dog and I pass a deep-water section of the creek. In minutes ice covers the water. Normally it is hard to let yourself think over the noise of the rushing creek waters. Today, for the first time that I can remember, it is profoundly quiet. We are passing through a old growth forest with trees still growing strong after hundreds of years in the little creek valley. Every other old growth creek on the island is pockmarked with downed hemlock or spruce. But here, in a forest that seems impervious to high winds or floods, time seems to have stopped.
This was a day for walking in shadows while having views of sun-flooded mountains. For some reason it is more pleasant than the bright days we enjoyed the last few days. It might be the last day for not wearing my heavy winter gear. Tomorrow it will drop to less than seven degrees Fahrenheit, by the time I post this piece.
We will have to dress Aki in her warmest clothes for tomorrow’s hike. She won’t mind. I won’t either. We will both enjoy the slight sting on our noises delivered by the cold. Today, I can leave my parka unzipped as we head down the trail. Even though it is a good weather weekend Sunday, we have the trail almost to ourselves. Most folks are getting ready for the Superbowl.
We hike down to the beach as the temperature begins to fall. Mallards, gulls, and harlequin ducks are gathered together on the shore. While the gulls stay put, the ducks drop into the ocean and swim just offshore, keeping pace as Aki and I move over the snow covered ground. In a few minutes they do reverse turns and head back to their beach hangouts. I guess the birds now consider us trustworthy neighbors.
Cold but no wind—that is what we hoped to find when we visited a trail system 30 miles away. We dressed Aki in warm gear, filled up the car, and drove out to Eagle Beach. The campground parking lot was full of other cars so we drove a little further to an almost-empty trail head. From there we took a little used path into an old growth spruce forest.
The skiing was almost perfect as were the shafts of sunlight that powered around the trunks of the huge spruce. We had the trail to ourselves. Every once in awhile a huge and heavy load of new snow tumbled in a thick shower on the forest floor. I loved skiing through the trail, hoping to pass through without being hammered from loads of falling snow.
It was also dark in the forest. At the edge, the trail led to a sunlit trail where the full sin made the snow covered alders almost too painful to view. From there we powered through another sunny meadow to the river, where Aki ran into a collection of other dogs. For the first time on the ski, she acted like a hog heaven.
Aki and I have been cross country skiing all week. It’s time for a break. So, we suit up at the front door and walk down the hill to the Douglas Island Bridge. I am glad that I attached some cleats onto my boots. No one has been able to clear the streets and sidewalks of this week’s snowfall.
I figured that we would spot a lot of ravens on our walk down to Gastineau Channel. A nesting pair have been gathering nest-building stuff in our neighborhood all week. But we don’t spot any of the smart birds until we reach a state office building down near the water. We see only one, which lands a few feet away from Aki. The little dog falls for an trick. She shoots out to the end of her lead and vibrates as the raven stares her down. Then raven lifts off the ground and circles my little dog.
We move onto the trail that parallels the channel, surprised not to see a single crow or raven. We will find two dozen of them blocking the road in front of the local grocery store. Someone inside the bus passenger stand is feeding then chunks of day old bread.
A new snow storm moved over Juneau last night. This morning, it blocked our view of mountains, islands, and clouds. But I was ready to accept what we could see—clouds of snow flakes clinging to the neighborhood spruce or fluttering to the ground.
It took an hour to shovel out a path for our car to reach the street. From there, with care, we were able to creep down the steep downtown streets and work our way out to Montana Lake. We normally head out there on sunny days when we can see the glacier and its surrounding mountains sparkling with sunshine.
We push ahead though the forest on a newly laid ski trail. It’s a time for enjoying the simplified view. Any thoughts or concerns I carried as I stepped into my skis disappeared a-half-mile down the trail. From there I just enjoyed the ski’s rhythms, stopping for time to time to look at surprising designs in the trail-side alders that were almost over-burdened by the fresh snow.
Walking with Aki 