Ten Years Later

I'm reading a book titled Flying South; A Pilot's Inner Journey by Barbara Cushman Rowell.  She was the wife of one of my photography heroes, Galen Rowell of Mountain Light Photography.

Back in the Summer of 2001 I took a trip to California to do some landscape photography.  My good friend, Rob Baas, was living in Pasadena at the time and I flew out to L.A. to meet up with him and we took a trip to Yosemite National Park.  We had a coveted camping pass to stay in the park.  It works kind of like a lottery, and there are only so many given out each year.  This needed to be taken advantage of.

Yosemite is amazing, as you would imagine, but perhaps more amazing to me was the drive home.  We took the back route through the Eastern Sierra mountains to the little town of Bishop, California.  Galen and Barbara had recently relocated there from the Bay area and were just settling in to the new studio when we dropped in for a visit.

As fate would have it, he was there in the studio.  I say fate because, this is a man who spent most of his life traveling to remote corners of the world, places like Pakistan, Tibet, Patagonia, South Pole, North Pole, etc...   So to see him in person was much more than I had expected.  It's always great to meet someone you admire, but in his case, it was also very humbling.  Why?  Because at the time, I had just turned 30, and he was in his 60's.  I will never forget shaking his hand and seeing the muscle in his arms and legs.  This is a man that climbs Mt. Everest for fun and tries to find passages and slopes that have never been attempted.  It gave me hope that I can have a career well into my later years.

I purchased several of his books  and had him autograph every one of them.  Now i'm very glad I did.

The next Summer Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara were on their way home from a trip to Alaska and made the headlines when the pilot of the Twin Engine airplane they were flying in crashed short of the runway on final approach to Bishop.  Everyone on board perished in the crash.  The irony is that he died in his own backyard instead of on the Summit of some far off mountain.

Flying South is a book that was written about a journey they took to South America in a single engine Cessna 206 Stationair.  Written from Barbara's perspective, it reads somewhat like a pilot's log book.  She successfully piloted them to the tip of South America and back.  It was due to be published when that fateful crash occurred.

For me it has a little bit of everything, travel, adventure, photography, and flying.  It also has a lot of personal history which I find interesting, but also makes me sad that their lives were cut short.  They've spent time hanging out with everyone from Robert Redford to, The Dalai Lama and some of those stories are in the book.  What a life.

So tonight I was watching the nightly news and there was a story about the storm that blew through earlier.  They were showing footage of the airport and I was sad to see my trainer plane N704XP laying upside down.  The winds were so strong that they broke the tie down ropes and flipped several planes over.

Several years ago I was contracting aerial shoots with clients and in the process became hooked on the whole flying experience.  Every single time we hit the throttle and watched the earth drop away from us, it was exciting.  It felt like my own personal magic carpet, and once you've done it the feeling never leaves you.

Here's a shot of me and Doug Rawles, my flight instructor.

 They say that you'll always remember the first time you solo and it's true.  For me it was August 8, 2004 and I remember it like it was yesterday.  I'll never forget taxiing to the end of the runway by myself and questioning wether or not I was ready for this.  I thought about the old adage that mountain climbers use: "Every step up the mountain is optional, every step down the mountain is mandatory"!  Yeah, it was something like that, taking off is easy, but eventually you have to come back down and that's where it gets tricky.

I remember lining up with the center of the runway and pushing in the throttle.  It felt like I was doing something illegal.  I expected to land and be surrounded by FAA, FBI, CIA, TSA, KSP, BGPD,  anyone with initials.  I just couldn't believe I was being trusted to do this by myself, but I loved every minute of it.

Coming in on Final Approach to Runway 3.

That sense of accomplishment lasted for exactly one week until my daughter decided she was tired of waiting and on August 15, 2004 we welcomed Savannah into the world.  From that point, I got deep into the business of being daddy, but I still love flying and one day i'll pick it up right where I left it.

A fisheye perspective of the world from 1,500 feet.

My alma mater down below.