Gold Creek

So, after trying to hike Herbert Trail yesterday, and deciding there was too much snow, we drove Rusty to downtown Juneau and looked for the Perserverence Trail. This trail starts at the ruins of an old gold mine up a valley from downtown. There are mining ruins and slag piles all over - and an old mining shaft entrance. There was really really cold air coming out of the shaft!

In the picture with the wooden bridge crossing Gold Creek you can see the mountain in the background - we watched some pretty cool snow slides happening. The sun was heating up the snow big time at the top of the mountain and every once in a while a slide would come down - it was cool. We actually heard the rumbling and it was a little creepy. You realized that these slides were probably much bigger than it looked from down in the valley. We ended up playing around in the old mining area and looking for gold in the creek and never started hiking the trail. It was weird the way you'd feel a breeze of cold air then warm air walking around. I guess depending on which way the breeze was blowing - I must say I've never experienced anything like that before. As we were walking around the brush along the creek edge I said to Dave "Oh Look!" He kinda jumped - I think he expected to see a bear - but it was the cutest porcupine sound asleep in a tree. I snuck up to him pretty close, and he didn't wake up till Dave accidentally kicked a rock. I took a pic of the porcupine when he was looking at me with this look of "gee thanks for waking me up, I was in a deep sleep." He was more brown than the porcupines I'm used to seeing on the east coast - which are black. We left and I watched him curl up and go back to sleep. The sun was beginning to set, so we drove back into town along the somewhat scary road and ate Russian Dumplings at a funky little retaurant. It was a nice day. This morning is warm and more humid - you can see that we're in for a change in the weather from the clear sunny skies we've had for a week - maybe try to do the Perserverence Trail today....