I was limited on time so I pushed up the improved game trail toward a game camera I strapped to a tree sometime last year.
The trail had healed since I trudged through on rainy weekend mornings in the fall and cut stems were fresh with new shoots of life. The trail alternates between steep timber and gentle slopes that collect water and create angled muskegs. In the subalpine I spooked a ptarmigan that was transitioning from winter to summer feathers. It dutifully led me away from its mate that I saw hiding in some brush. He made a big show and I wondered if he felt an emotion of fear or was simply reacting instinctively. It was the decisive moment of that bird’s life and there was no choice but to rise to the occasion. That’s what nature is. That’s what nature does. The failure to meet the moment is often fatal. I spoke softly to it in an attempt to assuage its fears, but to soften that instinct would likely kill him later.
I kept a safe distance and hit the shutter a few times, admiring the handsome yet disorganized color schemes of its features accented by the red comb above its eyes.
I broke into the alpine shortly after I left him. In a few more weeks the deer cabbage and lupine will add artistry to the rugged mountain still escaping winter.
I was excited to sort through hundreds of images I knew I had on the game camera — mountain goats, deer, maybe a pack of wolves that moved through.
The spot seemed like a corridor for movement between the southeast and northwest portions of the peak, but it can be difficult to pin down the most used intersections on a mountain.
The first subject was a doe who lingered until extreme closeups of both nostrils, her right eye, then rear flank were documented. A buck with a single peanut-sized nub of an antler stared blankly.
There were foggy photos from rainy days in which the camera didn’t fire quick enough to capture whatever hastily moved through. There was a poor, too close image of a young forked horn buck, a nanny and kid in the snow, a few more does, and that was it.
Almost nine months on the mountain and I had managed to capture some of the least interesting footage I ever have with a game camera. The battery was still 70% full.
Thankfully my ptarmigan buddy was waiting for me in the same spot where I had left him. He again assumed the role of protector and led me down the trail though I told him he didn’t have to. He continued, veering left and right as the trail did. It was his ploy to lead me away from his mate. Lure me down then quickly veer off. It worked. As far as he knows it was a successful execution of strategy or instinct and I hope his mate appreciated the effort.
That’s what I like about birds, they seem so disciplined and without humor. They take themselves so seriously it’s almost silly, but not in the way a deer will prance, a wolf will play, a bear will scratch or a seal will play hide and seek
While the summer will be about king salmon on the grill, fresh shrimp, crab cooked in a pot on a beach, and eventually a buck taken in the alpine, there is still room for the run-of-the-mill remarkability of an outing in which no food is collected, no epic adventure is lived and nothing dies.
• Jeff Lund is a freelance writer based in Ketchikan. His book, “A Miserable Paradise: Life in Southeast Alaska,” is available in local bookstores and at Amazon.com. “I Went to the Woods” appears twice per month in the Sports & Outdoors section of the Juneau Empire.
