OUR WORLD FROM ABOVE
Flying over the western Himalayas on a clear sunny day is one of those life experiences that really do defy adequate descriptions: it’s hard to find the right words to do justice to the unfolding panorama below. Mile after mile of jagged, rugged grey mountains with steep sides and narrow valleys, a river snaking through some of them. They get higher, steeper, more thickly clustered, until they’re all snow-covered, many blanketed in clouds, but luckily the day we flew the cloud cover wasn’t thick and we could see row after row, range after range, to the horizon and then beyond. White peaks, grey valleys, many small glaciers—rivers of ice on top of the peaks—stretching to another peak. We see fissures, fault lines, the up-thrusts of the earth. We fly steadily and the mountains continue below, an astonishing number, just on and on. Some really high peaks stick up, even as seen from the plane, so I can only imagine what Everest and K2 must look like from the air (I wonder if any flight path goes over them?).
On maps, the Himalayas are a dark swathe across the continent and from up here we can see just how large an area they take up—monumental, massive, impressive, beautiful, frightening with their immensity. One recalls stories of treks in the mountains, of great hardship and tragic loss, and from this vantage point we can see how very insignificant man would be, how easy it would be to become overwhelmed. I feel privileged to have seen this wonder in this way, safely from above. It’s a thrill, and I gazed, mesmerized, for at least 30 minutes. Seeing our earth from above inspires ideas of preserving what we see—imagine all that snow melted, all those glaciers gone.
Flying over the Himalayas
Monday, October 1, 2007 by viviennemackie
Many thanks for sharing your woderful experience with us.
Pleasure—it was an amazing experience