Early the next morning I pulled back the feather bed from the corner of my hammock where I slept and peered outside, surprised to find the spruces heavily loaded with fresh snow.  I lay in bed a little longer, watching for big clumps to slide dramatically off the branches (which they did).  There was a good six inches of fresh snow on the ground and it continued to fall densely; visibility was very limited (I could barely see the low log in the middle of the river, let alone the mountain across the way) and we knew that it would have to let up dramatically to allow a plane to land.  Expecting to spend the night, we nevertheless felt we'd better be ready just in case, so our expedition that day was cut short to allow time for packing and cleaning in preparation for a 3:30 departure; the end of daylight savings time further cut into our day.  But, the scene was cozy and wonderfully winter--the kind of weather we'd expected all along.  Big flakes fell softly all day and we went out hoping for fresh tracks laid overnight.  My mother quickly found our specific tracking goal for the day--fresh squirrel tracks!  Given the fresh snow, we'd left the skis behind and went by snowshoe, which had the added benefit of making trekking through the dense forest much easier.  Since we'd had the most luck with tracks in the timber, we started out just downriver, heading toward the mountain in the thick first growth forest.  Largely sheltered by the dense canopy overhead, the snow there was icy and several feet lower than in the open and wildly variable from almost bare earth at the base of the trees to several feet high in steep drifts between them.  The squirrel tracks we found were between two trees just a short distance inside the timber, but we saw no more that day.  We headed straight back toward the meadow, breaking out into the widely spaced trees much earlier than we expected.  We made a big loop from willow clump to spruce tree at the edge of the dense timber, then made our way back and emerged at nearly the exact place we'd entered the forest (which was unintentional).  From there we decided to head upriver and see if we could find the trail we'd been building for the last several years which was wide enough for a 4-wheeler nearly up to my meadow.  It was a little hard going in the dense trees just above the cabin and at one point we were briefly separated as my mother searched for a better route in the spruces.  Not far beyond, however, the trail appeared as a wide, smooth highway through the woods and it was gratifying to move through.  We were in my meadow in no time, looking remarkably similar to how it looks in the summer.  We clomped back toward the mountain then, exploring small meadows and willow clumps all but inaccessible during the summer; snow continued to fall and the sun appeared as a pale orb behind the clouds.  We turned north at the edge of the meadow and walked to the cottonwood that marks our property line, then returned through the dense trees along the riverbank.  When we reached the edge of Nagoonberry Hill (my name), I turned to the river, remembering the open blueberry patches there that would be covered with snow and might provide access to the river.  We thought we might scope out the river for landing and make some tracks for the pilot to see in case that would be helpful.  We slid down the steep bank, trekked out to where we thought he'd landed before, and clumped side by side back to the cabin, a little troubled by finding a hole a couple of feet deep in the snow right in the middle of the path.

We ate quesadillas for lunch and then packed up and cleaned the cabin as much as was practical, knowing that there was little chance a plane would come.  By 3:00 we were more or less ready, prepared to leave a few dishes and linens out if we had to go in a hurry.  We read for a bit and, when 3:30 had comfortably passed and the river was still socked in, I decided to alleviate my antsiness by going for another short snowshoe before dinner.  I headed downriver with Cailey, following our tracks from the day before through the woods to the boat landing and then to the river until the timber opened up again.  I found more squirrel tracks that cast doubt on our snowshoe hare theory.  The prints formed by the back legs were surprisingly large, but in the fresh show I could clearly discern the narrow toes and claws which were unmistakably squirrel rather than lagomorph.  At the base of another tree with a large open area under the branches I found many more tracks in a light dusting of snow including a couple more bounding prints as well as quite a few prints formed as the animal milled around the tree.  These were softer prints than what I would associate with a squirrel, so this renewed the hare potential in my mind.  I'm sure now that they were more squirrel tracks, as hare front feet don't align themselves like squirrel front feet in a bound, but I wasn't familiar enough with hare tracks at the time to know.  I bopped around for about an hour, finishing the tromp by trekking to the willows that border the slough and following them back to the river in the hopes of more tracks; I walked along the river then until entering the woods near the boat landing.  I saw boot prints then and wondered when they'd been laid down; when I saw them cross on top of my snowshoe prints from an hour before, I knew that they were fresh, and so I tracked my mother into the woods toward the mountain.  She had gone for her own adventure, but also didn't find much of interest in the way of tracks.  That night we ate split pea soup and toasted sourdough bread.

We wake up to snow (Mom's photo)	Cailey gazes over the snowy meadow	The cabin
Shrubs by the river	We descend into the dense forest	Fresh squirrel tracks!
We explore (Mom's photo)	Socked in meadow (Mom's photo)	I trudge through the spruces (Mom's photo)
Snowy meadow	The trail works in winter too!	This tree is wearing a hat
Cailey labors through the snow	This photo shows how little snow there is beneath the trees	Mom snowshoes down the riverbank
The workshop (Mom's photo)	View from inside the cabin	Squirrel tracks under a tree
Squirrel tracks	Bounding squirrel tracks between trees	The seeps have water in them now

The snow stopped falling sometime in the night and we awoke to clearing skies; we'd likely be picked up that day, but when?  We'd talked about the possibilities the night before and decided that the earliest a plane might show up would be 9:00 (assuming an 8:30 departure from town).  With that in mind, we set an alarm so we could go for a short jaunt before they showed up and thus make the day worthwhile.  We left a little after 7:30 in the early morning light, heading downriver in my tracks from the night before to the same area of forest.  I showed my mother the tracks I'd seen the day before and we saw more fresh squirrel tracks, but nothing else had moved through the area since the snowfall.  The blue sky on the fresh snow was spectacular, though, and it was hard to stop taking photos.  Farther inland I peered under the base of a large spruce and saw what looked like a hawk lying on the ground.  It turned out to be a complete folded hawk wing, brown with red highlights, and I took it along.  There were no other obvious body parts or feathers.  Just before we left the forest, we spotted another interesting area under a spruce tree--a squirrel runway.  Many sets of tracks ran between the base of the tree and a tunnel in the snow about eight feet away, presumably leading to a storage cache.  As we tromped back upriver I noticed some scat right at the edge of the crack that split the snow at the edge of the river.  I thought at first that it must be Cailey's, as it certainly hadn't been there when we'd passed it earlier, but she seemed quite interested in it herself and I saw a small print with many toes, too quickly obscured by Cailey for closer observation or photos.  I clambered down below it and saw that there was urine in addition to scat, so I picked some up with my hand and sniffed it.  Wow!  It was potent and immediately reminded me of my parent's boathouse in Juneau.  A sniff close to the snow was less overpowering, but smelled distinctly of fish.  An otter had come up out of the crack while we were in the forest and marked its territory (or possibly just voided).  Neat!  As the crack was proximate to the main channel of the river, we wondered if he or she was hunting down there.

Back at the cabin, we packed up again within reason and sat down for some tea.  At 9:30 we heard the buzz of an airplane and kicked into high gear, hastily packing, dumping buckets, and otherwise closing up the cabin (most of which my mother did).  The plane made a couple of passes over the cabin before I finally went outside in case they were waiting for some sign from us.  I waved from the porch and Torsten waved back from the back seat. We were hauling our gear down to the river just as the plane was pulling up, having landed from the direction of Taku Glacier.  Apparently the gusts coming down the avalanche chute behind the cabin made it quite turbulent in that area and necessitated an unusual landing pattern.  My mother and I were not the picture of organization on our way down, as we had just a little too much to take in one load.  I abandoned the sled half way down and threw my backpacks down the bank before returning for it.  My mother had retrieved it, so she slid it down the bank to me, causing most of its contents to scatter.  I left my packs behind for a second trip to the plane, but the boys soon piled out and retrieved the packs and told me to keep Cailey away from the prop, which the pilot had left running, and which left me unable to carry any more anyway.  We loaded the plane and hastily loaded ourselves--the mood was quite different from the drop off, as Ed was anxious to get underway.  He said that this was the window to pick us up, as the north winds were supposed to get severe as the day went on.  We taxied back toward the Taku Glacier, which was neat, then turned around and took off toward the cabin.  The flight down Taku Inlet was pleasant as the wind was on our tail, but the water was covered in streaky white caps below.  Turning into the channel was uncomfortable and turbulent, but not nearly as bad as the wind that knocked us sideways as we passed Sheep Creek.  Thankfully it settled down from there, but Cailey stayed curled in our laps all the way to the airport.

My mother and I agreed that the trip went off brilliantly and that we’d wound up with the right weekend.  We experienced a variety of winter weather conditions including clear and calm to clear and breezy (downright windy the last day) to rain, to dense, soft snow; conditions were ideal for cross-country skiing for three days and then snowshoeing for two.  The cabin was as cozy and comfortable in winter as it is in summer (after taking a couple of days to fully warm up).  My mother slept in the bedroom downstairs (probably the coldest room in the house) and I slept in my Mexican hammock upstairs and we were both perfectly comfortable every night (though we did keep the fire going).  The cabin was already stocked with jugs of fresh water from last summer; as soon as we arrived my mother melted some snow in a huge put and placed four juice jugs inside to thaw out over the wood stove.  By the time we got back from our first five-hour ski, the water inside was thawed and those jugs lasted until the others thawed at room temperature as the cabin warmed.  There were also two five gallon jugs of wash water from the well and, after melting snow the first day, these jugs thawed out enough to keep us supplied with wash water the rest of the stay.  We kept a kettle and a large pot of it on the wood stove at all times, providing on-demand hot wash water.  Hooking up the propane was a hassle because we had to dig through the snow that sloughed off the roof all the way to ground level, but if wouldn’t take much to situate it better in the fall.  We lit the burners on the range so we could cook,and used the propane lights after dark, but left the refrigerator off.  Some items we kept in the snow (in a tin to prevent pilfering by Cailey) and more delicate items we left in the fridge with a drawer full of snow at the bottom to chill them.  It could hardly have been more cozy and we easily happily have stayed for many more days of adventuring.

We head out at dawn (Mom's photo)	Snowshow tracks along the edge of the river	Our trail
The morning is stunning! (Mom's photo)	Mom and Cailey exploring	Taku Glacier across the river
Typical under-spruce scene	Squirrel trail to the hole	Squirrel hole
Squirrel tracks (Mom's photo)	Measuring the span of the squirrel's leap	Fresh otter scat and urine
Ski plane on the windy river (Mom's photo)	Cailey nervously snuggles with Chris	Windy Taku Inlet

Taku Cailey