Nowadays the dawn comes to me on the freight ramp in Syracuse, where there is an unrestricted view of the southeast sunrise. The sky makes its first light about the time I get there, and the sun breaks the horizon just before departure. Last Saturday I had no freight for the return leg, and my only responsibility was to wait until all the others left, so that I could be a last- minute fill- in if needed. I spent my time watching the sunrise from the freight office while a particularly pleasant classical symphony played in the background.
It was such a pretty morning that a telephone call from the company dispatcher couldn't spoil it. I was asked with an oh- so- pretty please if I wouldn't jump in the plane, fly to Albany and pick up a load of freight for Plattsburg before going home. I thought it was classy that I was given the illusion of a choice in the matter.
I had plans, but what sort of pilot can resent a chance to see some new scenery on such a pretty morning? I departed Syracuse on a direct course to Albany, along the Mohawk River, the Erie Canal, the old New York Central and the Thruway. For forty minutes the historic "sea level route" to the west rolled past my window. Passing Utica, the sharp peaks of the Catskills and the Adirondacks came into view on my right and left, and shortly the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts broke the distant horizon beyond Albany.
Traffic for the Albany airport was busier than I had expected, and I was sent on a wide arc to the south of the city on my approach. I was left to marvel at all the scenery within a seventy mile radius. Tall mountains, wide valleys, forests and cities; all begged for my attention like meadow flowers waving in a breeze.
Plattsburg, in my flying delivery van, is almost an hour north from Albany. The route passes over Glens Falls, where the Hudson was harnessed to power a thriving industry, and then past Lake George and Lake Champlain. Traveling north the contrast was startling. To the right of my course laid the broad Champlain Valley which stretches from the St Lawrence to Albany, where it joins the Hudson Valley at an elevation of about 300 feet. This great cleft in the mountains that otherwise stretch the length of the eastern seaboard was the centerpiece of British strategy during the American revolution. Their plan to sever the 13 colonies at this valley was thwarted by the battle at Oriskany, where British forces moving down the Mohawk Valley were disrupted.
To my left laid the high peaks of the Adirondacks, shorter perhaps on history but majestic in the early morning mists. The sun was almost behind me, and accentuated the light haze that filled the lower elevations. The peaks stood in ranks against a clear blue sky as their bases descended onto a translucent haze of light purple shading into gray.
As I passed the highest peaks, Lake Champlain opened ahead to its full width, and the valley started to fill with puffy white clouds several thousand feet below me. The blue of the water complimented the blue of the sky, and both framed the bright clouds and the misty silhouette of the distant Green Mountains of Vermont.
The trip home from Plattsburg would have been interesting if it had not been preceded by such glorious scenery. My course took me west of the high peaks past Saranac Lake and eventually Utica. I could see the entire border of New York State on the St Lawrence River to my distant right, and shortly I was able to look across the Tug Hill Plateau all the way to Lake Ontario. Below me was almost a hundred miles of unbroken forest and untouched lakes and rivers.
Visible too, in the distant southwest, was Saturday evening's snowfall. As I traveled south I flew under the high clouds that were advancing towards me. The sun became obscured and gradually I flew into a fine snow at ten thousand feet, immersing the airplane in an amorphous sea of gray. I guess it was nature's way of saying that the fun was done.
I salvaged a last laugh though. The snow that was falling at ten thousand feet was evaporating as it descended into warmer and dryer air below. Most of my descent into Elmira was in clear air, with enough visibility to see our hills rolling in the distance, and a lower deck of clouds approaching with the snowy weather. Walking to my car after parking the plane, I had the rare opportunity to pick a mid December bouquet of flowers, just ahead of the snow and cold.
I was supposed to have been home by nine o'clock that morning, but the company- sponsored tour of New York State added five hours to my work day. It was fun to fly someplace different than my usual route, but most exciting was the chance to do the best parts of the flight in absolutely perfect weather. The gradual transitions from first light, through the splendor of misty mountains and then clouds with their descending gloom of snow completed the day almost as if I had come a full circle.
It was much like a ring; the precious material that is life flows in a circle through time, and is graced at the top by rare and glittering stones.
Both of these pictures were taken on a different Saturday morning, this one a trip directly over the heart of the Adirondacks from Syracuse to Burlington Vermont in early February. There was no mountain haze on that morning, but the sun was still fairly low and there was no shortage of beauty. This picture was taken as I approached the high moutains from the west. Mount Marcy, at the center, is just above 5000 feet, and the highest mountain in the state. Whiteface Mountain is in the distance.
