John & Anne Wiley

After a few days without flying, we realize that ordinary happiness differs substantially from the bliss induced by the dreamy dance with terrain known as low and slow flight. That magical and impossible to define realm between ground level and about 1/4 mile up. Some pilots call the effect of this experience “vertical therapy,” in recognition of its calming and healing effects. Maybe a single word applies: Elevation. We notice powerful Elevation of our spirits during and after each flight. Often on the days between flights we get a momentary lift simply from the sound of a small plane passing overhead.

Can mere photos capture some essence of Elevation? Probably not, yet it’s fun to try. While looking at these, may your imagination drift into some hint of Elevation.

0424 Wrinkles of Change

Walking one of those paths is evoked by this view, along with a sensory flood of impressions from land contours and the “wrinkles” the passage of life makes on them. Let your mind wander into an impression of what it’s like to move over this scene in a three-dimensional dance that surrounds your soul. The paradise palaces people build often add splashes of color to the canvas.

0428 Palace of Colors

The variety of shapes and textures on the planet each add elements to the endless story we read from above.

0429 Spread

The magic of Spring that spreads before our gaze mingles with the other seasons to invite us back to the domain of hawks ever again.

I chanced to get this unusual view of Seven Falls that I really like. It’s nearly straight down and might be uncomfortable or confusing to look at, so be warned. If you look at the full-size version (or the larger rotated one on my Photo Page) your mind could be stretched a bit.

0383 Falling

As you know if you’ve looked at all my blog posts and the entire Photo Page, I love waterfalls. They’re fun on the ground, in the water, and from the air. When I was a hawk I used to swoop down to drink and bathe in pools like this, and slip through the mists of every waterfall in my domain. No surprise I’m exploring waterfalls anew since getting my pilot’s license, so maybe “falling” is an apt verb to describe such activity. This unusual vertical view gives me an illusion of falling into the photo, even though it was taken in a gentle turning descent. As a reward or reassurance for surviving the above pic, here’s a more normal view taken later in the turn as we looked back at the falls.

0388 Seven Falls

It’s easy to see why this is a very popular spot with hikers able to handle the somewhat strenuous hike in. When it’s hot you’ll often see happy hikers cooling off in the pools or warming up again on the smooth rocks. Though we’ve visited falls like this, hiking to Seven Falls is still on our wish list.

As you may recall, I’ve named this Tooth Rock because the name Cathedral Peak doesn’t seem to fit.

0355 Tooth Rock Revisited

From the western end of town (and certainly from our place), it looks very much like an incisor sitting on a front ridge of the mountain below La Cumbre Peak. As I’ve probably said before, it’s actually a relatively thin slab of upturned sedimentary sandstone as you can see in this pic from behind.

0350 Behind Tooth Tip

Just left of center and up from the bottom is the top tip of the Tooth Rock slab, and you can see that compared to the overall size it’s thin rather than conical like it looks from town. I’m also fascinated by the potential it has for human habitation, and on this flight I noticed the acorn grinding holes left in this large boulder close below Tooth Rock.

0352 Tooth Grinder

I imagine people (women?) sitting on the surrounding boulders chatting away with those grinding acorns here for food. Did they also live or at least temporarily camp in the many “view” caves on the face of Tooth Rock? Seems like a natural spot for that, and though most of the caves are shallow they could easily have built floors and roofs over them. In addition to the large cave at the base (see my Photo Page for a closeup of that) these are most of the caves on the upper part below the tip.

0356 Upper Cavities

Here’s another pic that shows the ones below this and above the main cave at the base.

0357 Middle Hollows

I’ve included the bottom caves from the prior pic at the top of this one for perspective. I’m presuming current visitors to Tooth Rock would not generally visit these caves unless they have climbing gear. I’m also guessing that native peoples would have considerable skills and strategies for climbing such rocks. Sometimes flying over such places I feel a connection with ancient peoples, and with the hawks they watched circling above them.