Postcard Beautiful

WOW!

Today was absolutely absolutely absolutely gorgeous!

The sky was totally blue, the sun was shining brightly, and it was freezing cold.

When I checked the thermostat outside the front door this morning it read 9 degrees.

Knowing that I had obligations in town this afternoon, had to rush home to dress up a bit then head back to town again tonight, I quickly drank coffee this morning, skipped breakfast and got bundled up to head out to Eagle Beach with Jamie.

How does my dog know that it is Saturday and that I am getting dressed to take her out, rather than getting dressed to go to work?

I have no idea how she knows but she knows, and my dog followed me excitedly from room to room, getting underfoot, while I gathered layers of clothing together.

Insulated pants on bottom, three layers and a jacket on top, two pairs of socks, dead-sexy insulated boots, hat and gloves and I was ready to go.

We both eagerly walked out the door ready to take on the beautiful and very cold day..............

There is a lot more snow Out the Road than anywhere else in Juneau, and the drive on Glacier Highway is post-card beautiful.

A magical, clean, pure, rugged, gentle terrain filled with snow-covered pine trees, rivers and mountains.

I pulled the car over to the side of the highway a couple of times on the way out to Eagle Beach so that I could capture this unbelievable scene in pictures........

There are two entrances to Eagle Beach.

The first entrance leads to the Ranger Station, a picnic shelter, and a viewing area where you can see magnified views of the Chilkat Mountains.

This area begins at the fast flowing Eagle River that feeds directly into the channel.

After a fairly short but very lovely walk along an open trail you end at the sandy beach.

The second entrance is another 1/2 mile down Glacier Highway, and the entrance leads directly to the beach that LC, Jamie and I have walked many many times.

I decided to drive directly to the second entrance thinking that Jamie and I would walk on the snow covered beach close to the channel.

As soon as I pulled into the driveway I knew that I had made the wrong decision.

Partly because the drive was only partially ploughed and not gravelled at all.

I continued to drive along the roadway getting more and more concerned that my car would get stuck on the icy road way or stuck in the fairly deep snow

I finally pulled over to the side of the road, reached into the back of the car for Jamie, and when we were both ready to go, looked out towards the channel.

There was no beach.

The water was coming into shore in very strong and noisy waves - stronger than I had ever seen in my time in Juneau - and coming in almost completely up to the road.

It was startling to see the water so high, so close and so violent.

A far cry from the long walks we took over the summer far out onto the sand, when the beach was so often at very low tide.

I looked over towards the Boy Scout Trail and saw the low lying fog, the leafless tree that stands out so much against the backdrop of pine tree covered beach and mountains.  Still beautiful but looking so different from what I was used to............

The familiar, completely snow covered, always beautiful Chilkats.........

We  did not stay in this place very long.

We were out in the open, the wind was very strong, and within just a couple of minutes my hands and feet were too cold to stay. 

And I was worried about getting stuck in the snow and ice of the roadway, knowing that I had to be at work in the afternoon.

I quickly loaded Jamie back into car, and decided to make a try for the other entrance to the beach, hoping that the wind was calmer on the river side..........

The other beach road was ploughed better up to the Ranger Station, but not ploughed at all through the visitors parking lot.

I drove past the Ranger Station, stopped for a second, looked doubtfully at the parking lot, and instantly made a decision to back the car up and park on the side of the road by the office.

Again Jamie and I piled out of the car, walked through unploughed parking lot, and then walked through the snow making a path as we went, while I enjoyed the views.

I wondered if Jamie's feet would be OK walking in such deep snow, and I wondered the entire morning if she was going to be OK, but she seems to have made out fine the entire time that we were out.

Again, lots of high winds, lots of strong waves, and within a few minutes I was really cold again.

I knew enough to keep moving, and wanted to enjoy this incredibly outstanding day.

But for the second time that morning I soon realized that Eagle Beach was just not the place to be on such a cold and windy day.

Bound and determined to take some pictures of the stunning place all around me, I sucked up the cold as long as I could and took these............

The picnic shelter where me, LC, my youngest son Chris, and my dog James enjoyed the grilled salmon that Chris had caught that morning in August............

After a fairly short walk along the river and heading towards the beach, Jamie and I turned around and headed towards a bridge that crosses over the river.

I was hoping to get away from the wind, and hoping that the relative shelter of the area would allow us to slow down a bit and not have to rush back to the car to warm up.

Just before heading across the bridge I turned and took this picture.

I said it many months ago..........so beautiful it makes you want to cry........

Cold hands.

Cold feet.

I snapped a couple of pictures from the bridge and decided that as much as I truly love Eagle Beach, it was time to cut my visit short.

It has been a couple of months since I last visited.

I will make sure that it is not a couple of months before I visit again...........

After leaving Eagle Beach, I pulled off Glacier Highway one more time on the way back towards the house, to take pictures from a bridge crossing over Eagle River.

My poor dog - between the unusually short visits to two areas of the beach, and my pulling over on the way out and on the way back, she had no idea what the heck I was doing.

I have decided that I have the best dog in the world.

She is smart and beautiful and intuitive and very loving, and she is one hell of a trooper............

The view of the highway from the bridge............

Intending to head for the house, on the spur of the moment I saw a sign pointing towards Amalga Harbor and turned towards it, ready to try just one more time to find a place to walk that was not as windy as Eagle Beach.

And I did.

I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my mutt and we headed down a ploughed driveway leading towards the back side of Amalga Harbor.

The tall pine trees on both sides of the road protected us from the wind.

Jamie happily explored the sides of the road in typical dog fashion.

And I happily walked and snapped pictures and headed instinctively towards the sunshine that beckoned in front of me.

I found the sun occasionally when there was a break in the trees, and although it was incredibly beautiful it brought with it no warmth at all.

It was OK.

Sunshine is sunshine is sunshine is.........

A silent and snow-filled country road...........

That lead to a silent and snow-filled trail...........

The trail leads to a cove that is usually also quiet, but today the waves were roaring and crashing on the rocks and towards the shore.

This is the same cove where my son caught fish and where he flirted outrageously, as he is DNA-driven to do, with a cute little marine biologist from UAS this past summer.

Even though I passed trail-heads on the way Out the Road where cars were parked, neither Eagle Beach nor Amalga Harbor contained any people at all.

These places, cold and beautiful and cold, were mine today............

Behind this cove is a beautiful lake that contains beautiful huge salmon.

Only now, in mid-December, the lake is completely frozen over.

Chris caught fish here.  I picked Salmon Berries here.  We watched a man playing with his radio controlled toy speed boat here.  I watched a fly fisherman here.

And today it was silently frozen over and covered with snow.

I love it.  I absolutely love it...............

And in addition to fishermen and berries and boats, I have now seen my dog burying underneath the snow on the lake by the shore, scratching feverishly for..........what? 

I don't know what was under there but she wanted it...........

And finally we walked back down the country roadway and eventually made our way down to Amalga Harbor proper.

High water and crashing waves, and another one of many beautiful places I visited this morning.........

On the way home I cranked my car heater up to max willing the interior to warm up another 20 degrees.

It was not a usual outing for either me or for Jamie - it seemed like the entire morning had been made up of a series of mini-adventures and cold/warm hands and feet.

But I really had a good time and was looking forward to getting home, drinking coffee and warming up.

But my mini-adventures were not over.

I was about a mile from the turnoff to my road and saw something up ahead of me run out of the woods on the left side of the highway.

It ran down the embankment as quickly as it could through the deep snow, ran quickly across the highway, and then ran just as quickly as it could through more deep snow up the embankment on the ride side before disappearing into the woods again.

I was not driving fast because there is still snow and ice on the highway Out the Road, and while this scene was playing out in front of me I slowed the car down even more.

For the first few moments after I saw him I thought he was a dog.

But watching him run full speed down the embankment, across the highway, back up and then into the woods, (without hesitating for even a moment) I am convinced that I saw a wolf.