Somewhere near Battery Point in the Haines Borough
If I were to say we went bushwhacking on Battery Point trail, the Haines Borough folks would roll their eyes. But we got off the trail with our naturalist, storyteller and photographer, Jim. Now, Jim is the kind of person who gets caught up in the little plants and flowers, and doesn’t mind poking around in scat and loses track of time. Of course, who needs to track time when one is on vacation. This trail was new to him as well and he is decidedly one of those who likes going off-trail. After the morning flyfishing in Chilkat river and a hearty lunch, the zodiac dropped us somewhere from where we could hop on the Battery Point trail.
The cottony heads are a flowering plant called fireweed (Chamaenerion augustifolium), the purple blooms were just about all spent. Jim mentioned that Alaskans say that the spent blooms marks the end of summer and the first snow is just around the corner.
These are almost all Sitka Spruce that dominates a younger temperate rainforest. The western hemlocks grow in the shade of Sitka Spruce and will eventually outlast the Sitka spruce. In a mature forest, Western Hemlocks are 70% of the trees. On trails, the leaves of little hemlock plants rub against you and they are far gentler than Sitka spruce leaves.
Now, if this was home turf, these chicken of the woods would be coming home with me and would be in the butter right after. All I could do was inhale their wonderful fragrance.
I want to say this was the battery point, in case there is one, but frankly, could be anywhere along the trail. This is where we got off-trail.
More picture postcard
Yet more picture postcard
Jim and I …
… looking at these little barnacles.
Mud, rocks and grasses – not entirely sure where the foot was landing next.
Jim is forging the path ahead of this other couple! We agreed we could call it bushwhacking in Alaska without the whacking.
Surely, we were somewhere on the Battery Point trail for some part of the hike
Locomotoring 
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