A Snowy Flight Over Utah

On route to my connection in Salt Lake City, Utah this morning, two failed landing attempts in white-out conditions lead to a 40 minute diversion to a small airport in Idaho for refueling.

While ordinarily this would be frustrating, I had a long layover in SLC anyway that was going to kill an afternoon. The diversion actually became an incredible aerial tour over Great Salt Lake with the opportunity to photograph some of the most unbelievable winter scenery below.

We were on the ground about an hour in Idaho before the weather passed and we were back on track. Now here I am in SLC waiting for my next flight and already excited about images I was never meant to capture. My good / bad luck strikes again!

Above the Mojave Desert in California

The scale, beauty, and vastness of the Mojave Desert is perhaps best captured from above. These aerial images were photographed north of Palm Springs, California.

 

Sky 360 Restaurant in the Calgary Tower

Offering incredible views of downtown Calgary, Alberta, Sky 360 is the revolving restaurant located at the top of the Calgary Tower. With the restaurant taking 60 minutes to complete one rotation, we made a sunset reservation and marked the occasion by sharing a bottle of sparking wine, the grilled house foccacia, sky burger, and butterscotch crème brulée. 

 

Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort in Olympic Valley, California

As one of the largest ski areas in the United States today, Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley) in Olympic Valley, California rose to prominence as the host of the 1960 Winter Olympics. Growing into a premier ski resort (one of 18 around Lake Tahoe) in the decades that followed, the legacy of the Olympics is still very apparent in this picturesque part of Northern California.