Another sunny day in the rain forest. Aki trots between an old friend and me along the forested edge of Auk Lake. It was near freezing when we started but is now warming toward the projected high of 57. Spider silk and remnant ice draw dominate the walk.

The silk, spread taught between the twigs of a blue berry bush with bark already blushing red with spring sap, appears and disappears as a faint breeze moves it in and out of the light. Each pulse presents and withdraws in less than a second a linear rainbow of color. In wet areas not yet reached by the morning light, velum-thin sheets of ice form mazes of interconnected ice feathers. Each ice sheet is as monochromatic as the spider tightropes are prismatic.

On this seventh day of the fourth month of the seventeenth year I hike seven miles without Aki. Later, I will learn that the little dog had a great time walking around Downtown Juneau. But she would have enjoyed this meander around the Point Bridget Peninsula. First, there is the weather: mild with little wind, occasional sun, temperatures in the fifties. Second, there is the company: a group of hikers who enjoy each other’s company as much as they do the woods.

We start by skirting the beaver dam ponds that Aki and I walked across during our last visit. Then the trail takes us down the edge of a meadow that is rich in wildflowers in high summer. Already wild iris push little green arrows through last season’s dead growth. In a month or two their purple flowers will wave in the summer wind above chocolate lilies and magenta shooting stars. But today nothing on the meadow pulls the eye away from the still-white mountains of Yankee Basin.

After the meadow we climb to Cedar Lake, with its northern-most stand of yellow cedar trees. Then it’s up an old mining trail and down to Camping Cove. The rest of hike offers us at least filtered views of the ocean. At times only the sound of it’s small waves competes with that made by boots hammering muddy ground.

We start this hike on a trail through Juneau’s tiny university. Students encased in rain gear talk about classes or the opposite sex. In less than five minutes were are on the Auk Lake trail, passing in the process two totem poles and a bronze sculpture of a breaching humpback whale. Aki likes this portion of the hike, perhaps because of the friendly reception she receives from the students.

On the edge of the stream that drains the lake, a guy in commercial crab pulling rain gear casts with a fly rod. The stream carries thousands of sockeye fry past him and dumps them into Auk Bay. This salmon fry river draws the attention of cutthroat trout and dolly varden that had wintered in the lake. The fly fisherman targets the dollies and trout, which target the salmon fry, which have been feeding on things lower down the food chain. So much violence carried on beneath the languid surface waters of the lake and stream.