For a while I have been kicking an idea around in my mind, which turned more into a philosophical question: can I write a book from the photographs taken in one flight? The airplane will only fly 3 hours (plus reserve) at a speed of roughly 75 miles per hour, which means that it isn’t going to go too terribly far. While I am capable of producing some images which aren’t awful from the airplane, would there be enough?

The philosophical musing gave birth some months ago to the perfect flight. I didn’t plan to write a book from it in advance; in fact, the idea didn’t pop into my head until about the two hour and twenty-minute point in the air. The only alteration I made to the rest of the flight was to extend it to the last-minute possible fuel-wise and extract every tidbit of variety from the descent process, where I normally would have called it quits sooner, out of fatigue and a strong desire to urinate.

There are many factors into what is sufficient for a book. Variety is one, geographic coverage another, quality ever present, beauty a must, and naturally the question of the subject. While there are many beautiful things on this planet, there is also a lot of drab, temperate, mildly undulating, repetitive, and uncompelling scenery along the way. My typical pursuits that result in a book are a result of some sort of fixation either attacking a smaller subject area until quality and variety is adequate or spreading that subject area over geographic distance and some sort of time constant to make it worth it.

The subject matter here, the northern edge of the Bernese Alps of Switzerland, has a component of “geography is destiny” to it. The area simply has such a profound quantity of dense variety that these variables and constraints happened to come together by chance and result in the yet another book, one that I am somewhat surprised as to the image quality.

Apparently, I leave myself a bread crumb trail from prior flights. In this case, I had mentioned in my “Mons Silvius” post how I “do not spend enough time” in the Val Ferret, which reminds me of Jackson Hole. Part of the problem relates to the fact that it is down in a hole of sorts. I must pop over a pass somewhere, descend a few thousand feet, wander around without smacking into a gondola or pile of rocks, and then climb in a circle to get out. While that is not my standard definition of a flight in the mountains, it is outright impeded by my own Greek approach to time. I simply do not like to go flying these days unless it is the late afternoon or evening. That is a deal breaker for this valley, as the largest mountain in Europe stands like a wall, blocking the evening light, which turns this attractive place into a literal “vale of deep shadow.”

It was up until about 18 months ago that I viewed the best time of day to fly as smack in the middle. Blue sky was the deepest, whites were brightest, light was full, haze diminished, and everything was generally resplendent. That was my modus operandi in the United States (where haze is a fraction of Europe to begin with), and became the initial fixation in the Pyrenees, as luminosity was stunning. Slowly but progressively, I began to find midday to be brash, refractive, and dull, whereas evening would come alive with shadows, hazy mystique, and splendid colors.

Like everything that I do, there is one setting: too much. Thus, I began overdosing on evening flying, excluding the middle of the day entirely, which meant that I wouldn’t notice such things as the Val Ferret as “it is always dark so why bother.” That continued until, like a crow [or a monkey], I found something else shiny to occupy my attention. Considering 2020 to be practically a failed year when it comes to autumn (most of them are, to be honest, since 2013 in Colorado), I had a hankering to chase some remaining tired larch color. Connecting the dots that a “vale of deep shadow” in evening would mean a ‘vale of deep sun’ in the morning, I quit the Greco-Spanish flying schedule and drove over the airport before lunch.

The results are minimally adequate.

Italian/Swiss border. Solvency (left), insolvency (right).

Grand Goliat. Bleeding off altitude.

Val Ferret with Grandes Jorasses (4,208m). Reminds me of Grand Teton.

Triolet Glacier moraine, beneath Grandes Jorasses. Not a ton of room in here.

This image is not half bad.

Monte Bianco/Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe….

Terminus of Glacier du Miage, with autumn color. Did not expect to see that….

The border again…

Finding Jesus on the summit? I waved the wings back at the hikers….

Eastern end of the Massif du Mont Blanc. For the discerning, there is a ridge in the foreground, with a deep valley behind it. 

“Magna opera” is the plural form of the latin phrase “magnum opus,” which is defined as “a work of art, music, or literature that is regarded as the most important or best work that an artist, composer, or writer has produced.” That a plural form exists at all is indicative of a case of vanity or confusion, as there should only be one “best” work, but here we are, me on the soap box declaring that I have two.

The first magnum opus was “Glaciers of the Rockies.” I had bitten off nearly more than I could chew with that one, flying all of the glaciers in the American Rockies before packing it up and fleeing to the Fatherland (and shortly thereafter packing it up and fleeing from the Fatherland, but I digress). It took two and a half years after I took the flights to get the book out. Since then, I felt that the pinnacle was achieved and that new glaciers were something of a regular “presence” in my life. I had already flirted with a few small remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees, albeit not enough to bother writing a book. Then after the magnum opus, I was off frolicking in the Alps, a comparative orgy of glacial features. Somehow, I got the idea that my then current exploits had integrated with the magnum opus and blunted its impact, meaning that glaciers were a fixture without a noteworthy zenith within.

While that was the sentient background to my pursuit, the glaciers of the Alps were on my mind right after completing the flights for the 4000ers in 2018. Since I had already seen many incredible glaciers while getting the peaks, I had some familiarity. I then had some time before leaving to play in the Bernese Alps, finding that there was a lot to look at. Returning in the summer of 2019, I went bonkers, having decided that my next project would be virtually every glacier in the Bernese Alps of Switzerland.

I chose that subject as all of the glaciers in the Alps as a whole would require 1000 pages. The range is 654 miles long and jammed with small and large glacial features. The Bernese Alps contain the largest glacier in Continental Europe, along with plenty of others of significant size. The valleys that they inhabit are unlike anything I had to date seen; it is second only to Alaska, Patagonia, and the Himalayas when considering overall height and ice mass. While Iceland, Norway, and Greenland have much in the way of glaciers, their maximum height is well below the Jungfrau; thus, I find the Bernese Alps as a suitable compromise. Yes, I am acting like a pompous sommelier of glaciers….

Anyhow, the project is finally done. “Glaciers of the Bernese Alps” contains almost every glacier (there are some technical debates about whether certain features belong) in the range, with detailed maps identifying their location. If I thought “Glaciers of the Rockies” was my best work, well, I didn’t see this coming, so here it is. Oh, and, there are more glacier books coming, so I’ll have to figure out the opus/opera vanity complex.

The flight was supposed to be a chase of autumn color found in timberline larch trees. As I procrastinated and allowed the midday sunlight turn to afternoon partly cloudy skies, I cursed myself for losing the illustriousness of sunlight, which accents well in the evening. I decided to go anyway, to first visit my intended destination of the more open valleys of the western Valais. If sunlight turned out to be a problem, I’d wander over to Chamonix, as the northwest facing Massif du Mont Blanc rarely disappoints. Besides, there are usually some larches over there, which may be behaving differently, even though the webcam for Lac d’Emosson wasn’t promising.

As I repeated the wanderings of 2019 in the valleys of the Valais, I was not compelled by the larch tress. They were still early, and sunlight was fading behind high clouds that were growing thicker. While I had a backup plan with Chamonix, I wasn’t “feeling the Jesus” about it, so I decided to cross the Grand St Bernard Pass into the Aosta region of Italy, determining that I’d make a go at the Val Ferret, on the south side of the Massif du Mont Blanc. While sun angles were not ideal, the valley reminds me of Jackson Hole and the Tetons, and I do not spend enough time there.

As I plodded a short distance westward toward the head of the Aosta Valley, I wasn’t feeling it there, either. Something about the lighting was off, though in limited foreground instances, it was very bright. The larches were now below me, and it was mildly irksome to see that they were in peak color in Italy, yet the sun had gone away, making it very hard to work with them.

Instead of rounding Mont Blanc and returning over Chamonix, my third plan, I noted that some mountains were sticking out above some clouds, to my southeast, toward the Italian Plain south of the Alps. I decided to throw caution to the wind (or better said, rode with the wind), and the closer I got, the more I got distracted by the presence of some sun to my left, illuminating the Swiss border and the large mountains on both sides.

The further I went, the more it seemed that the mountains sticking out above the clouds were retreating away, which was an illusion of the mind. What was happening was my assumption as to their location was becoming more accurate, which involved a bunch of nonsensical Italian restricted areas. I had never ventured this far out of the Alps, as there was no attraction. For that matter, I didn’t even notice these mountains at all; they took on appeal merely because they were sticking out above the clouds.

I continued east, enjoying solar illumination in limited doses of the Alps to my left. I asked myself how far I would go, and I thought “the Matterhorn seems a bit far.” Ten minutes later, I was rounding the bend with the Matterhorn in view, putting the pedal to the metal to climb above Cervinia. There was a notam for a new cable, installed high up on a mountain, in some sections 623 feet above the ground. How am I supposed to make sense of all these Italian (“eye-talian” as my grandfather used to say) towns with some death dealing cable strewn up at 11,000 feet? The only thing I could do was climb higher than 11,447’, the maximum altitude of this cable of doom. In the meantime, the clouds to my south thickened, which I was viewing while circling, reminding me profoundly of the Pyrenees. It may as well have been “that damn inversion” between Cerdanya and Barcelona, which I did no shortage of bitching about, until I realized then as is the case now that the inversion sat against a major mountain range is extremely beautiful.

Finally reaching enough altitude to clear the nefarious cable of doom, I added some more altitude and squeezed over the pass just to right of the foot of the Matterhorn, the mountain known as Mons Silvius back in the Roman era. This pass was the concern of Roman generals millenniums ago; now it means that the sightseeing helicopter from Zermatt might get closer than I’d like again. Wait a second….are they running them with the pandemic?

Mons Silvius, Berg der Berge (“Mountain of Mountains”), is seemingly small and large at the same time. A “horn” in its geological essence, it gets smaller the higher it goes, where it ends as a famous point. Yet, for some reason, I find that a simple photograph is not enough. It should be; yet, it seems each time that I visit that I am not sure what to make of the mountain. It takes on a different personality, playing games with my viewfinder, with its small summit yet monolithic base, which I am for time’s sake relegated to swirling around. I don’t have the 20 minutes it will take to attempt to climb to 14,000 feet to get near the summit, so I stay down at the razorlike ridges that comprise major climbing routes and the border with Italy and Switzerland.

After my surprise trip to one of the most famous mountains in the world, it is time to turn west and head back before sunset. Oddly, the very clouds that were ruining my original aspirations have now made for a perfectly balanced image: snowclad mountains below, illuminated skies above, texture in the entire image. Nothing about the flight went as planned, not even the many improvised backup options that I had formulated. Yet, what turned out to be the best part of the flight was the thing I hadn’t planned whatsoever. That seems to be how it works most of the time.

Valais larches…not feeling the Jesus.

Looking into the Aosta Valley…appears promising.

So I went the other way…Valpelline, Italy.

Some sort of mountain on the south ridge of the Valpelline.

The Matterhorn that I wasn’t going to.

Inversion over the foothills and plains of Italy, viewable while climbing.

Mons Silvius, Berg der Berge. Pass below that concerned the Romans. The nefarious cable of doom that someone strung up is also below, so I guess the stuff that matters is below the airplane.

A more traditional view, albeit the “dark side.”

Western ridge. There is a refuge visible on the ridge.

Dent d’Hérens (4174m / 13,694′), one of the peaks in my “4000ers” book that started this nonsensical attraction.

Pennine Alps in evening light.

 

 

Sometime after arriving in Colorado in 2013, a small spark of desire to take black and white photographs materialized. I have to confess a rare influence by another photographer, Ansel Adams, as I was flying over much of the same iconic Western scenes for which his work is comprised. Mr. Adams and I share not only our preference for scenery in common. We also share our disdain for human influence in our images, as well as a penchant for slowing down and savoring the landscape. I quote Ansel Adams on the back of the book, where he refers to what is lost by taking in scenery using modern transport – it just goes by too quickly. While aerial photography does involve some speed, “low and slow” Cub flying is the closest one can get to a sense of early 20^th century time and space, where things happen much slower.

At any rate, I had started a black and white project based on my wanderings around the US West and did not get around to finishing it. While that is a whole subject in itself, how many books are substantially completed and I change focus to something else, one day recently the spark that materialized in 2013 fired. I realized that the Alps are the ideal location for black and white images for many reasons. It requires a certain compositional dynamism (winter helps), which is abundant here, though I must confess that looking at the same mountain range without color demands an entirely altered paradigm.

Skill and laziness apparently can conspire to create a strange form of inertia. As I may have alluded to, if there is one thing I do not get sick of, it is chasing glaciers. Given that “glacier season” for my kind of aerial photography is late summer, the time is now to engage in pursuit of these features, driven by the fact that glaciers are both declining and in motion, and that a lot can happen in a year. It would be foolish to have access to unexplored glaciers and elect to not pursue them. If 2020 is any indication that things can rapidly go to shit, then I don’t know what is.

I have a variety of projects that I track in my mind. The glaciers of the Pennine Alps is the next one (I have a book of the Bernese glaciers due out in days), mostly because I had the bulk of them already. The surface area of the region is large enough and filled with enough glaciers that the project is ambitious. Nonetheless, I believed I had one last flight, which was to explore the south-facing ridges on the Italian side of the Alps.

The flight would be long, consuming nearly an entire tank of fuel, climbing up and over two mountain ranges, dropping down the other side, snaking around a bunch of ridges, looking for glaciers beneath some of the largest peaks in the Alps, often with clouds on the south side. Accordingly, “laziness” set in as day after day, I couldn’t get a read if I would get clouded out upon arrival or not.  The other factor was that I wasn’t sure that any real glaciers were there. Satellite maps were unimpressive and flights up at 15,000 feet along the border showed an explosive overload on the Swiss side, with some piddling nonsense on the Italian side. At the same token, my accounting-influenced insistence that I “get them all” demanded that I check out what was there.

Finally, two factors lined up. The weather [sort of] cleared up, and I hadn’t gone flying in over a week. With the weather due to become crappy for 5 days, it was now or never to alleviate the hormonal pressure relieved only by flying a Cub.

After the tedium of getting where I wanted to go, I realized why I was disinclined to perform the flight: it is a lot of work. There are many ridges to explore, lots of tight mountain flying and, as I got closer to where some glaciers might be, I realized that the mountains are massive, with menacing clouds wedged against the glaciers. Winds were intriguing on top of it. As I was squeezing between clouds and mountain ridges, getting knocked around by mystery winds, I had to ask myself “Why do you ever get the idea that any of this is easy? This is a ton of work.”

At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised how large the glaciers were. Part of why I thought that there were none of any consequence pertains to the fact that, nearly 100% of the time, clouds have been hugging the Italian side of the Dufourspitze (15,203’ / 4,634m), while I was flying above them in a state of ecstasy at what was sticking out above. If I can’t see the glaciers, then they must not exist.

Thus, I present photographs of the “glaciers that weren’t there.”

The Italian side of the Pennine Alps. The scene looks similar to a flight in September 2015 to the Elk Mountains south of Aspen, Colorado.

Lac de Places de Moulin (yet it is in Italy). The glacier on the other end has already been photographed for the project, so proceeding to the right to see what I can find.

Sneaky glacial feature below. Too small to matter. 

Merda! That one is on the Italian side. Will have to come back another day as fuel does not permit getting close and finishing the job today.

Curious snow patch in the foreground, though not a glacier.

Mont Tabel Glacier & Chérillon Glacier. There might be more up in the clouds. Now we’re getting somewhere with terrain.

And that is the Matterhorn sticking up into the clouds. Flight altitude 10,500′, with the peak at 14,692′, well out of view. Suddenly this valley is much more menacing when down low in it.

Ghiacciaio de Valtournenche.

Glacier d’Aventine. I don’t know why my map software alternates between French and Italian.

Petit Glacier de Véraz. Ironic that it has “petit” in the name when it is really rather large.

Lysgletscher. Now in German…cute. So this is what was hiding behind the clouds….”piddling nonsense.”

Southeast of the Dufourspitze, down in the vertiginous clouded menace. Ghiacciaio Delle Piode Occidentale. Back to Italian. 11,100 feet.

Ghiacciaio Delle Piode. From the satellite map and from above, the foreground looks like the glacier is dead. Note that water is coming out from the bottom, which means that there is quite a bit of ice with rock on top of it.

Lago Alpe del Cavalli with Lago Maggiore on the horizon. It can be frustrating that clouds frequently occlude the glaciers I am chasing when it is sunny elsewhere, but so be it.

Alpjergletscher drainage, just on the Swiss side, taken from Italy. This one is in the Lepontine Alps, another project for another year, though it can’t hurt to start collecting images.

The concept of how many photographs I have taken is something that I hadn’t paid attention to. Up until recently, my images were sprawled in two Lightroom catalogs and 5 Aperture libraries. Once my Mac crashed and I installed 64-bit Catalina, adios Aperture, so it was time to move them all over. While I was in the middle of a process that ultimately took two months, I decided to completely reorganize the whole shebang and make some order out of it. With the pile in one Lightroom catalog, I could easily see how many images I had, which was something like 489,700. Well, half a million doesn’t seem that far off…

Sometime later, I had 400 to go before 500,000 and I decided to go hiking. In the most extreme cases, I will take 800 photos on a hike. Typically, it is something like 140. The plan was to hit 500,000 on a flight after this hike. Well, I had the inconvenient reality of “too much heaven” with a resplendent day of beautiful sky and color beyond what I could have imagined, so it was an 800-photograph hike. Just like that, I hit 500,000, with no special planning, pomp, fireworks, or glacial glory like I was planning.

Instead, the photograph was of a cow.

So, without further ado, I bring you the 500,000^th photograph that I have taken:

While I would love if the matter was settled and done, there are so many facets as to what the “500,000^th” image really is. For example, I have some duplicates in the catalog, though I have a giant crate of film images, and my iPhone shots are not included, so I decided that the 500,000^th is the 500,000^th, as the duplicates in the catalog are offset by those that are not.

But wait…there are 13 images on my desktop that absolutely refused to import from Aperture into Lightroom. Now what do I do? Well, I shall include the image found 13 later. Maybe this is the one:

Now this brings up a very complicated matter. Not too long after snapping a shot of this lovely bovine lady, she walked up to me as I was crouching. I am used to it, as cows seem to have this peculiar attraction to me and they all do the same thing: trot up kind of fast, sniff, and then want to be pet or lick my hand. This one was determined to get a piece of my irresistibleness, and as I had my right arm up holding the camera photographing her approach, she whipped out her enormous tongue and attempted to lick my armpit.

Yes, gross. Naturally repulsed, I attempted to stop this sordid episode of reverse bestiality, which, of all things, offended the cow. She decided to attempt to head butt me in response. I guess “no” does not mean “no” in these remote Swiss valleys.

That brings up a Swiss cultural issue in the Bernese hinterlands. I was talking to an airport operations guy, who mentioned that “each of these valleys has their own accent.” They are basically so hillbilly that there is a phrase in Swiss “German” (what they speak up here hardly qualifies as German in any context): “Your father is your sister.” I.e., straight out of the annals of West Virginia banjo-playing incestuous crooked family trees, the same weirdness happens up here. Which, if I am going to bring up West Virginia, I heard an episode of something like “yodeling” on the radio, and it was literally like fusing the worst of a West Virginia horror show with traditional Swiss yodeling. Amazing. Freakish. Irresistible. Terrifying. All at the same time.

I guess it should not surprise me if cultural stereotypes are so extreme as to the “Deliverance” nature of the place that the cows are in on the action too.

The rest of the hike was spectacular. It is hard to put into words the intensity of light and scenery that went on for a few hours. I kept going, long after I had wicked blisters, until the sun went down, keeping an eye over my shoulder for that cow…

While this little shed looks quaint, I was drenched in sweat and pissy by this point. I should have known that it was making me a salt lick (or unmentionably worse) for cows.

A Swiss pigsty. Scenic…but still a pigsty.

I became “goat Jesus” as they followed me into the wilderness.

The cows over here were in a spectacularly scenic area and they absolutely refused to pose. The best I got was a belch while chewing on grass.

Since we’re on the theme of bizarre mating rituals in dead end Swiss valleys, I shall note that, during a previous hike on the mountain on the horizon, I encountered a German lady that wished to engage in, ahem, “amorous activities.”

A lonely larch.

A calf that thinks he is a wolf. It has been suggested that I write a book with cow photographs, for which I might do. My best seller is my horse book, not any of this subpar aerial photography nonsense that I mess with. I seem to be able to interact more peacefully with animals than humans (the sexual predator of a cow aside).

The Geltenhutte is in the shadowed valley, on the left. This area where I am hiking is a frequent descent path while returning to Saanen. It really puts it in perspective to hike around it and realize that the terrain is positively majestic.

Sometimes owning an airplane completely sucks. The short story is that it breaks in its all too famous 1930s technology kind of way, which means over two months of not flying while spending one hundred hours or more getting covered in grease, wanting to hurl tools (but cannot as the hangar is too nice and expensive), spending prodigious sums of additional money, spending prodigious sums of normal expenses (hangar, insurance, everything else), and trying to tell oneself that this whole rotten mess is some sort of “learning experience” that will somehow make my life better. Then an equally cynical pilot friend says something like, “It’s an expensive hobby,” which rubs salt in the wound even though I should be smart enough not to whine about the consequences of my own choice to tell myself that I love this kind of thing.

Then it comes time for the test flight. Wisdom from respected mechanics (at least the ones that write manifestos in aviation magazines) note that “the most dangerous flight is one after maintenance has been performed.” Not all pilots get this idea, as the view is that, since a professional looked it over and touched something, it must somehow be better. The fact is that an aircraft engine is a delicate equilibrium of mechanical parts with not a shred of computerized diagnostics or management. To fix one thing upsets this equilibrium, which requires hours of operating the aircraft while observing engine characteristics, such as magneto drop, roughness, power output, mixture adjustment requirements, color of exhaust residue, oil temperature, oil pressure, and the like. Or, we could just call it what it really is and bring in the witch doctor to do a voodoo ritual on it.

The single thing I am most neurotic about is if the engine will still run. I do not really fear loss of control, weather, windy landings, getting lost, and a host of other things that can go wrong, as those can be mitigated (or avoided) if one’s brain is operating. When the engine quits, there is a glide ratio measured against altitude and available earth (or water) below, and that is that.

After a few innocent yet potentially dangerous maintenance affairs (where something was caught before flying), I made a personal rule to require a test flight around the pattern, even in the event of an oil change. The idea is to land, check for leaks, and if more work was done, allow for an overnight cooldown cycle to check torque and allow the engine to communicate if something is amiss. The purpose is to isolate changes in this supernatural equilibrium under the cowling and increase safety.

Since this flight involved a cylinder change, I also really needed to run it hard to facilitate break in, so I decided to do climbing circles above the airport to be rather high up and fly around for an hour, the entire time in glide range of the airport. While I thought I would head up to 7,000 feet or so, I realized how much I had “missed breathing in the non-existent air” and I climbed to 11,500 feet, just to freeze in my shorts, while also seeing Mt. Blanc above the puffy clouds and increasing the radius for which I could glide to the field.

That exposed an interesting artistic paradigm, where I have never seen this area from this high up. Due to routines, habit, flight configuration, and fuel efficiency, there has never been a reason to fly two miles above the airport. I am usually beginning a descent from the glacier levels about 10 to 15 miles out, entering the foothills at summit level, working my way down to coordinated and visually efficient entry to the pattern, having enjoyed the mountains up close the entire way down.

I expected the view to be defiled with haze. I forgot something that I figured out in Wyoming. During summer, when haze is usually worse, midday light is a good time to cut most of it out of the image, if one wants a wide-angle landscape shot. Between midday light and midsummer solar angles, lighting and contrast can be quite special. To my surprise, it worked very well from two miles above.

The second flight, the next day, had more haze and was taken traditionally in the evening, which is my favorite repose of gentler light tones. It occurred to me that I usually would have thrown a bitch fit over the haze, except I figured out how to both mitigate it and embrace it to add some depth and mystique to the image. In any case, I suppose even a basic test flight where one loses his aeronautical virginity again can expose new artistic frontiers. And, like a mother in the process of birthing a child, snarling in rage at the man that “did this to her,” when the panting and heavy breathing is over, she cradles the child in a state of oxytocin-induced euphoria. When flying in circles, freezing cold two miles above the airport, wondering if the engine was going to explode, I forgot about the exsanguination of cash and marinated in a Zenlike bliss, happy as a lark.

Gstaad Airport

Les Rodomonts

Château-d’Oex, from 11,000 feet.

Exchanging a greeting with Mt. Blanc.

Since I was so ridiculously high, I could fly to Lenk-Simmental, as when I left the glide range of Gstaad Airport, I was in glide range to Sankt Stephan.

Hills behind Château-d’Oex, with the Swiss Plateau and Jura Mountains behind. Those hills have summits of 7,000 to 8,000 feet. I climbed one once in an act of philosophical futility.

Vidamanette.

Rougemont, from Vidamanette.

Les Rodomonts again.

Gstaad Airport from one mile above. The standard circuit involves skimming the left edge of the pine clad hill.

The pine clad hill, entering the circuit.

Turning base for 26.

Turning final.

Next flight. This forest is on early climb out, named “Les Arses.” “Arse” is British for ass. I suppose it would demonstrate some sophistication if I mentioned that the forest is a microclimate where unusually hardened pines grow rather straight, making excellent wood that results in the fabrication of musical instruments. I like talking about the etymology of asses more.

Behind Rougemont. I must confess that I surprise myself with image quality.

A tad west of Les Diablerets, with Mt. Blanc on the horizon.

Geltenschuss.

While it looks like a “Bob Ross cabin,” it is actually a lift station for Swiss farmers to transit goods up and down. I have seen in other installations that basically a cart is moved up and down. I have yet to see hillbillies riding on the cart as it is probably verboten.

Wasserngrat.

An extraordinary rendition of Saanen.

Entering the circuit.

Turning final. Note “1867” on the roof of the building below. It is the specified place to turn base-to-final, so I know if I am ever caught in fog, the roof will point the way to the airport (or to the side of a hill, but I digress).

 

I recently decided that I have grown tired of perfect weather day images of the Alps. Images are repetitive and lack sufficient basic intrigue after the initial discovery period has worn off; thus, it became a fixation to chase the mountains while mired in poor weather. Part of it was artistic exploration and expression and another was the erotic appeal of apocalyptic flying. In short, it is conventional wisdom to avoid such things, though it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

On this flight, there were rain showers on and off from the northwest, with marginal VFR ceilings over the Sarine River valley escaping the Alps. Conditions were overcast over the Swiss Plateau, Lake Geneva, and Rhône Valley and were forecast to rapidly improve in the next two hours. If the plan didn’t work, there were a few alternate airports available if I couldn’t make it back before closing time. It worked out, as demonstrated by my trail of photographic evidence and the fact that I have lived to write this blog post.

That lends to the matter of humans. Due to clouds and other phenomena, I was forced to fly at lower altitudes, near where people live, a task I haven’t done in a long time. I don’t know that I would say that it was particularly enjoyable (or miserable) in light of the human presence, though it is a periodic reminder that I am gravitating more and more to extremes of atmosphere and terrain that represent almost arctic levels of isolation, of which I have no complaint.

South of Château-d’Oex, looking toward Les Mosses.

Intyamon Valley, with Swiss Plateau on the horizon. Light rain showers in between.

Swiss Plateau, west of Bulle, with a few rain showers.

Approaching the Riviera.

Lake Geneva, évidemment. 

Rhône Valley…heading toward the horizon.

Forget the people….Grand Combin above the clouds. Like a breath of fresh air, even if that fresh air was trying to beat the crap out of my airplane.

Eastern end of Massif du Mont Blanc.

West of Martigny, with salacious clouds looming everywhere.

Mont Blanc, from Col du Forclaz. 

Beneath Dents du Midi, in a swirling wind shadow, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still holding the shoe….Dents du Midi.

Riviera from a mile above. Heading toward those clouds and summits.

But not before looking back at the Rhône Valley, with weather clearing up as forecast.

On the other side of “those peaks.” Reflections on Lake Geneva viewable through the clouds.

Now we’re talking!

Les Mosses.

Spitzhorn. I climbed to the base of it a few weeks ago. Suffice it to say that one can find heaven on earth.

Saanetschpass. It made me want to fly over it, though I did not.

Left hand downwind for runway 08, just before turning a continuous base to final. Rather tight.

I have had two people suggest that I launch a podcast and, so far, I have resisted such overtures of power, riches, and glory. When I listened to a number of episodes on Steve Johnson’s new podcast (from Supercub.org), The Not So Straight and Level Podcast, I decided this was the one where I would make my auditory debut, as he has a fairly straightforward way of celebrating the day-to-day honesty and fun of flying Cubs and Super Cubs. The episode is 90 minutes of my flying story, including tidbits from my youth with my grandfather as an influence, and a condensed version of the last five years of [I am at a lost for adjectives] international adventures with the PA-11. The podcast can be found here.

In interacting with people, I find that many, including some who know me very well, are not aware of other things I am up to on the site and elsewhere. For those that do not know, I blog monthly for AOPA. A history of my posts is under the Writings tab on the site, and here is a link to my recent coronavirus themed post: An Overdue Rant. To further complement hours of pleasure consuming my output while stuck at home during a pandemic, my first book was an “economics thriller” and that, somehow, led to an orgy of aerial photo books (I am not sure there is an explanation). Nonetheless, I have been inspired by the economic carnage caused by coronavirus such that I wrote a five article series revisiting one of my more significant articles in 2013, where I posited a notion of economic apocalypse. These articles are located under the Economics tab, at the top.