Fly With Me

November 11 , 2007

Yesterday I climbed the mountain, and as was to be expected for a November climb, there was little to photograph since it is the season of the in-between, without much color and without snow.

But right after I walked out on the deck at the tram, I heard a swoosh overhead and watched a shadow quickly cross the sun.

I looked up to see this

At the time I was trying to talk on the phone to my climbing friend who climbed with me during the balloon fiesta. I was trying to rub it in that in the month since he and been here, I'd gone and climbed the peak three times.

But the glider kept distracting me.

I told him I had some photos to take and that I'd call back later. Later ended up being hours later as three guys tramped across the deck carrying long rolled up containers which meant that they were going to launch off of the the cliff face. As they assembled their craft I got a quick lesson in hang glider construction and then decided to climb down the face of the mountain a bit so I would be in a good position to try and capture the "launch."

What I should have done was take a shot of what was just over the edge but this photo from a couple of weeks prior will have to do. This one was taken just a couple of hundred feet to the south of the launch point and gives you a pretty good idea what lies just below the edge of the mountain. In one of the photos that follows you can see the same tram cables.

The first glider is off the mountain.

After a turn to the south he began to work his way over to the highest point of the Sandia's about a mile to the north.

Glider two takes off, a pilot who used to live in Michigan.

Glider pilot three is running "in the air" as he leaves the ground.

And since we are talking about flying, I decided to throw in this image from last Sunday when I went down to the Basque to try and get some photos of the migrating waterfowl that winter here in New Mexico.

I should have gotten down there a week earlier, as most of the color was gone from the trees.

I'm thinking that the glider thing may be on the horizon for me.