Leaf Blowers
Prose and Photography: Nicholas Pascarella
My parents used to take us hiking when we were younger. My memories are fuzzy; I'm sure one or all of us kids were dragged kicking and screaming into the minivan to travel hours into the wilderness when we could've been playing football in the backyard or hanging out with our neighborhood friends. We hiked the Smokies and parts of the Appalachian Trail, we drove the Skyline Drive and camped by rivers, and we somehow didn't kill each other. A favorite photo of us kids and dad looking off across the mountains was on my mom's desk in their bedroom for years; they enjoyed hiking immensely, and to see that we also enjoyed it (at least some of the time) must have been a small treasure.
I visited them recently. Though they're in a different house now and the town has changed quite a bit, it's still the same place, and Massanutten mountain, a fixture of my youth, still stands proudly over the town. In full foliage, it looked as good as it ever did. Maybe it was a few days past peak; I didn't care, it was just good to see my old friend Home again. Oh Shenandoah, how I longed to see you.
I drove the old roads I used to drive in high school, moo'd at the same cow herds, and enjoyed the same gigantic pink sunset against the west side of the valley. A hint of manure swirled into the cabin on the cool breeze from my open window. The mountains glowed with the last of the sun, and I jumped out at a stop sign to take a photo of my little Civic with the sunset. The photo was garbage; I should've gotten out the full frame, but I didn't care. That rushing moment of nostalgia will be burned into my brain forever.
Visiting my family wasn't the only reason I made the trek down from New York. Fighter aircraft in full-swing Autumnal foliage has eluded me for the better part of a half decade. Fall being my favorite time of year, this really burned me. Life is busy and for one reason or another, I wasn't able to make the photos I wanted happen, and vowed to try again the next year. And the next year. And the next. Until this year...in a different car but the same head space, in a different blind but after the same quarry.
These mornings often start off the same. The craggy moon was nearly full, and even in the darkness of another traveling midnight, I could see the valley splayed out beyond the interstate and weaving gaps through the mountains in the distance. Stars glittered on every horizon, giving the mountains the illusion of a massive fizzy drink. My sleepy eyes itched but carried a sharp focus for deer near the road.
The sun popped up somewhere I could not see, and kissed the tops of the mountains which began exploding with color around me. Every hundred feet of elevation change brought a new palette, shifting from the burnt oranges to lime yellows and straw browns, from muted cranberry to fiery crimson. Seeing the sun throw deep shadows into the valleys and distant ranges was profoundly moving.
And there was another layer to it this year; my parents decided to join me. Three decades of time compressed and I was a child again, running up the trail ahead of them, stopping to look at bugs and smiling into the sun. I had much more purpose this time around, but now I appreciated these adventures just as much as they did.
Up top, the valley spread out like a tablecloth before us with some kind of country board game; farm houses, silos and homesteads dotting the rolling hills, connected by dirt roads and tucked into the rainbow foothills of these ancient mountains. Invasive, knockoff ladybugs swarmed the top of the mountain, flying into my mouth and biting when they got inside my shirt, but most of the worthwhile animals were still, and what normally is a busy mountaintop for predatory birds, was quiet.
The entire day was not quiet, however. We lucked into a few Strike Eagles, only a few of which we could see due to the route width and the freedom therein. And who could blame them? The entire valley had multiple channels due to the ridges and gaps in the valleys, and I assume the ones we could not see were below the opposite ridgeline, or even the one farther off, flying the route as they saw fit. I was hoping for at least one shit-hot pass, but just picking the dark gray jets up visually as they entered the valley (or not) from all different spots was challenging enough, and a few of them must have been just a line or two over.
Two Harriers did the same thing to us, screaming by just out of sight and out of reach, only becoming visible when breaking the horizon miles away. There's a special kind of panic as you hear an approaching fighter jet get louder and louder while not seeing a damn thing but the landscape in front of you. My parents got to enjoy this special type of panic with me on this day, as the Harriers sharked by just below the far ridgeline.
As the sun stretched the shadows out once more, we were treated to some T-38 Talons on a training flight. Black jets weaved along the far ridges, pulling up and glinting in the sun as they crossed the ridgeline over us. My parents experienced a quality miss as well; a pair of Osprey ran the route after we'd come down. How sweet that would've been...but every journey must end at some point.
That's what will always keep me coming back. Each trip and set of photos is unique; each is special. The only people in the world that got to see some of the Strike passes from that spot on that day were me and my parents. Spending this Jets in the Wild excursion with them felt full circle; I'd forced them to hang air-to-air photos of jets in our stairway when I was little, now I've got my own catalog of photos to replace those. And although I was chasing an eternal moment of a jet deep in foliage, I still think they enjoyed the hike as much as I did.
