Dawn Over San Francisco

30,000 feet over tibet

a few hours into a recent flight to portugal the captain announced that we were flying into a high pressure area, the air was unusually clear and he recommended we take a look. i opened the window shade to find an absolutely stunning view. the next several hours were spent staring out the window, camera in hand, neck aching but eyed glued as the scenery unfolded before me.

when the captain made the announcement we were on the edge of sichuan flying into tibet. we would then pass into qinghai and finally xinjiang before nightfall. click on the pictures for a much larger and clearer view.

below the aircraft i couldn't at first see any sign of human presence. we flew over ragged mountains and frozen lakes like the one above.

the above mountains in the distance stood out as the highest peaks by far. the tallest mountain is gongga shan, the third-highest peak outside of the himalayas. a satellite view of the mountain is here. we were about 50-60 miles east when i took the photo.

these hills stood out as they were topped not by snow but by a crumbling light grey material.

hidden in a valley here was one of the few signs of civilization. you can't see anything in this photo, but...

zooming in closer you can see a village built along both banks of a small river.

zooming in even closer you can clearly see the houses and a single building with a blue roof.

mile after mile of rolling hills cut by streams.

more signs of civilization hidden between the hills.

a small village with a rather unusual landmark...

i've tried searching on the internet but can't find what this is. from a distance it looked to be a runway but looking more closely one can a multi-story tower with about a kilometer length of clearing with something laid out on the surface. as you'll see below i saw another one later on.

as we flew further north the hills were dusted with snow, blown into streaks by the wind.

for the most part the valleys were deserted but every so often there'd be a single house or small community.

the square in the center is a small house surrounded by a walled area, possibly for livestock.

what at first again looked to be a small runway is another one of those strange towers.

zoomed all the way in one can see the tower on top and a length of clearing in front.

one of the larger villages that we flew over.

as we flew further north the snow became less and less on the hills, looking here more like powdered sugar.

finally as we flew into xinjiang the snow rather quickly disappeared. in this area some of the peaks were covered by of dark material not visible on the other hills.

here are the final mountains before the taklamakan desert, one of the largest sandy deserts in the world. the name of the desert means, 'those who go in do not come out'.

it was hard to get a good photo while over the desert as the wind-blown sand gave the area a dark brown haze. looking through to the ground all one could see for mile after mile were dunes and and the flat basin.

in the middle of the desert i found what looked to be a small camp of two cars and some temporary buildings.

at the north end of the desert lies the flaming mountains, the hottest place in china. above is one of the passes through the mountains, clearly visible here from satellite.

a road climbs up from the basin to a plateau, seen here from satellite.

we continued over the tien shan mountain range and onwards into the sunset.

above is a video i made from some short clips that i took on the flight. unfortunately it doesn't show much detail due to youtube's compression routine.