John & Anne Wiley

2010/09/05

Banff & Beyond

Filed under: Flying,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random,Tripp — John @ 21:10

In a quiet moment just now, I looked again at pix from our NxNW Adventure approaching Banff. It’s so beautiful I had to post a few more. Here are two that give some context for the Banff Lodge pix I posted during the trip.

0667 Banff Approach

0667 Banff Approach

The small city is mostly out of frame to the left, and the lodge is just visible to the right of the bend of the river beneath the jagged peak.

0676 Over Banff

0676 Over Banff

Now we’re over the edge of the city with the lodge just right and beyond the white water rapids. To my eye that peak looks like it was once the bottom of a lake or sea, lifted up to that freakish angle by whatever forces created these mountains.

Passing along the valley to the South we saw innumerable striking vistas, and quite a few more glacial waters.

0710 More Turquoise

0710 More Turquoise

In ordinary terrain, the turquoise water and stark mountain would attract visitors from miles around. In this glut of magnificence it blends into the background. Even what we saw next couldn’t put much of a dent in our joy that such places are preserved for future generations.

It was a bit shocking though, to see what a few years’ supply of fossil fuel extraction leaves behind.

0718 Open Sore

0718 Open Sore

Since it’s miles from Banff and away from main roads at about 50.196572, -114.812794, maybe most Canadians don’t realize this is going on. Only the ragged row of mountains beyond is silently watching.

2010/09/03

Fog Fun

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 03:05

We took Tripp up for a fun flight this evening, intending to fly an hour or two with brief stop at Santa Paula for fuel and return at sunset. As we walked across the field to trusty Tripp (who seemed to me a bit excited to use her wings), my eye was seeing a different flight. Even though Tripp has all the latest gear to fly on instruments, my license doesn’t have the required notation to use it. The fog I could see blowing over UCSB made it clear that we had an hour at best before my VFR (Visual Flight Rules = no fog) license would make landing back at SBA unlikely. So we changed plans.

Taking off on Runway 33 we got a beautiful view of downtown with fog menacing the entire shoreline to Ventura in the West and beyond where the coast turns South toward L.A.

1013 Foggy Coast

1013 Foggy Coast

So we just flew to the harbor and back, enjoying the unusual weather while keeping one eye on the airport. Because of the westerly wind blowing along the shoreline, we could see the fog moving among the trees on the hills of the “Mesa” and Hope Ranch areas. So fun to watch!

1031 Fluffy Fingers

1031 Fluffy Fingers

Years ago, before getting my pilot license, we used to drive the Big Sur coast occasionally so I could gasp. Every time we drove there, several times I would take an audible deep breath. It was involuntary, and so predictable that we took to counting them. Well it happens much more often now that we fly, and not just in the Big Sur area. Our twenty minute flight today was a two gasp jaunt that consumed far less time and fuel than those scenic drives.

Flying the Big Sur coast is nice, but in some ways driving it is still better. Driving from here is an all-day adventure each way, with only brief stretches of highway along the scenic coast before the views get gasp-ish at San Simeon. Flying it again is in our near-term to-do list, as is repeating our way of touring it in more detail. We land at Monterey, ride the inexpensive metro bus to the southern end of the line, get off and enjoy the environs for a while, then catch a later bus back to our plane for the flight home. This gives us four views of that amazing place, all in an easy day from home. Meanwhile, I can get my gasps from a few minutes of flying around SB in Tripp.

1037 Hope Hills

1037 Hope Hills

2010/09/02

Blue Rockies

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random — John @ 00:37

I once had a recording by a group I think was named String Band, of a song I think was named “Blue Canadian Rockies” (first popularized I think by Hank Snow), that pined for the shores of Lake Louise. That of course implanted a lifelong yearning to visit this renowned place, and Anne I’m sure has her own story of wanting to see it. So after departing Edmonton and passing Rocky Mountain Home, we entered the Banff Park valley and turned South with considerable romantic anticipation. We weren’t disappointed.

0581 Water Colors

0581 Water Colors

Glacial runoff produces colors that can be difficult to believe, much less photograph. Does this give you some clue, when you remember that we were enjoying a panorama of such views?

0600 High Falls

0600 High Falls

We saw several magnificent waterfalls so high in the mountains that few people have seen them unless from a small plane. Reaching this spot would certainly involve an arduous and dangerous climb, because it’s quite high above the Saskatchewan River.

0619 High Glacial Lake

0619 High Glacial Lake

Before long we also saw high glacier-carved lakes fed by the runoff from the shrinking glacier that presumably sat and carved their bowl from solid rock over millennia. This is probably closer to how Lake Louise once looked, than what we see now down nearer the valley a few miles away. How many people will see this before it’s gone? Instead, most visitors will probably take the short drive up to Lake Louise from the main highway traversing the valley. Perhaps some might wonder how it looked with a glacier descending into the lake, rather than retreated up into the misty distance of this snapshot.

0622 Lake Louise

0622 Lake Louise

Further along the valley toward the South I noticed this cascade of small falls and pools on a high slope, and wondered how many people have ever been there.

0647 Tumbling Falls

0647 Tumbling Falls

A bit further was a striking scene where rocks and trees dance in a geological rhythm.

0659 Reaching Rocks

0659 Reaching Rocks

Such an amazing region! We’re so glad to have seen it from the air!

Shall I look for a few more pix of this passage to share in another post about this day?

2010/09/01

Jasper Seconds

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random — John @ 02:07

The first time I ever saw Jasper was on a train from Smithers, so perhaps it’s fitting somehow that my third experience of Jasper began in this small town with a big regional presence. It’s not just the tourism that is now year-round, but also it serves as a shopping destination for some of the region of B.C. between Prince George and Prince Rupert. It was a delight when the hotel shuttle driver said she’d be happy to give us a “Mainer” enroute to the airport. Noting with some delight our quizzical expressions, she explained that’s what her kids called it when they’d cruise Main Street.

0274 Mainer

0274 Mainer

Though it’s changed a lot since I lived there, some of the places I lived and worked remain as reminders of another era.

We discovered Jasper anew too, because approaching it from the West presents a very different perspective and we noticed things we’d missed before. Even in this day’s heavier smoke, the Western entrance greeted us with a hint of ancient Egypt.

0538 Pyramid Peaks

0538 Pyramid Peaks

For reasons I don’t understand, this view also reminds me of our time in DC at the feet of solemn Abe in the Lincoln Memorial.

Sometimes the intensity of Being Alive almost overwhelms me, and I woke in that space this morning. Maybe that’s why there’s something massive for me about looking again at these faint impressions of places that evoke faint and distorted memories. How many miles and passages have piled into the misshapen vessel that is human memory? How is it that we ever experience as mundane, this incredible Life?

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