I was in Germany for three months and did weekend trips to several different cities. I took the overnight train to Paris. Got in early in the morning (it was November), took the subway to my hotel and dropped of my suitcase, and walked a couple hundred meters to the Arc de Triomphe. The sun had just come up, but the day was drizzly and overcast. And then the sun must have found a break in the clouds because this incredible, warm, red light came in underneath the clouds. In that moment I knew why artists have flocked there for centuries. It lasted about 30 seconds and then it was gone. I had time for two pictures (1, 2); I’ve tried to correct the color to be more like what I saw, but it’s just not even close. And no, I’m not a sucky photographer; the other half of the Arc de Triomphe had scaffolding around it.
In my flying days I did an evening flight to a large, but not terribly crowded airport. Had a little time on the ground and got ready to fly home. I had to get directions through the sea of blue lights that marked the taxiways. On the takeoff, there were a lot of bright lights at the far end of the runway. I took off, made a left turn, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness it felt like I was flying into the stars.
After a very difficult sailing trip in the North Atlantic we got to St. Kitts on the day before Christmas. I knew some of my shipmates were leaving and I wanted to get some part of the ship cleaned up a bit so I got the Brasso and polished the ship’s bell. Took three hours, but it was absolutely gleaming. We sailed around to the leeward side of the island. I was in the rigging furling the sails; it was sunny and warm, seemed like I could see the whole Caribbean reflected in the bell, someone pointed next to the ship and in the clear water I could see a sea turtle swimming.
I’ve been down in the Canyon. It’s a whole new perspective to feel what it does to your body when you hike across it.
I saw a thunderstorm from the window seat in an airliner once. It was like flashbulbs going off under a layer of cotton. My dad was with me; he was a pilot his whole career and said he’d never seen anything like it.
Oh, I have a recent one. I flew over the coast of Greenland last year, on a rare perfectly clear sunny day, right over that massive glacier on the southeast coast. Go to Google satellite view, you’ll see the one Im talking about. hundreds of arena-sized icebergs calving into the ocean along about 50 miles of coastline. I was the only passenger who saw it – everybody else had their window shade down so they could sleep or look at their critically essential devices. I saw basically the same view, same scale, as the google satellite image. I felt so privileged.
I don’t know about beautiful, but I remember holding my daughter for the first time. There was a semi-detached scientist part of my brain observing, and I remember thinking, “Wow, I wish I had someone taking a blood sample, because there are some seriously unusual hormones flooding me right now.”
Victoria Falls Matanuska Glacier in the fall sunshine
Ngorngoro Crater Antelope Canyon, AZ
Most of the national parks, but especially Bryce, Katmai, Denali, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite
The pyramids and sphinx of Giza
The Matterhorn on a flawless sunny day
Migrating animals on the Serengeti Plain
Actually seeing my daughter for the first time. After a 16 month adoption process and only seeing pictures, I cried tears of joy the moment I first saw her and that was awhile before I even got to hold her.
First in the early morning atop of Smuggler’s Notch in the glades after a fresh snowfall. Perfect silence. As if I was the only person in the world. I held my breath to take it all in. Then laid down first tracks.
A dark eastern Montana night sky filled with violet lightning from a dramatic horizon-to-horizon thunderstorm descending from the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Cherry blossoms in the grounds of Zōjō-ji in Tokyo against gentle grey rain clouds, piled on the brown earth, dusting the Jizō statues.
The first thing that popped into my head… the last morning of a trip my wife and I took to Yellowstone several years ago. We were on the deck of the lodge at Lake Yellowstone having coffee. There was a slight mist in the air and the surface of the lake was perfectly still, like glass. I tried to snap a couple of photos but they don’t do justice to how amazing it looked IRL. For all of the incredible things we saw in Yellowstone on that trip, that’s one of the sights that really stands out in my memory.
A couple that came to mind, the night sky in the mountains in Afghanistan with not a single artificial light source for miles and earlier this summer when I was fly fishing around dawn and I looked up from tying on a fly to see a black bear crossing the stream right where I was standing, not 10 feet away.
The obvious answer is my wife and children, and I’m absolutely sincere when I say it’s them, but it’s also a bit hackneyed.
I am a great lover of natural wonders, and I’ve found the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, and Carlsbad Caverns to be breathtaking. But there’s one particular view I’ve always considered most beautiful, though it’s man-made. When driving east on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at night, just past the Atlantic Avenue exit, you’re treated to this gorgeous panorama of the lit-up skyline of downtown Manhattan, with the lit-up Brooklyn Bridge to its right. I’ve always loved that view.
One other thing that’s up there for me is the beauty of the Louisiana swamp, as seen from a boat tour in Breaux Bridge. The way the light filters through the canopy of trees, plus the hanging Spanish moss, and the big yellow lilies in the water…this was a tour we took on a two-week road trip that included stops in nine different states, and my entire family considers that to have been the highlight.
I was on a long walk in Kyoto with my Japanese friend and we wandered into a temple; IIRC, it was called Chion-In and I was just staggered by the inner temple, which I was not allowed to enter, but could only gaze at. Unbelievably beautiful.
Then there was this view of the pink hills as we drove into Sedona, AZ near sunset. Mind-blowingly beautiful.
Nope. Things I see tend to elicit little or no emotional reaction in me at all. (Smells and sounds have more of an impact - particularly bad smells or sounds. But sights? Meh.)
This is something that I will remember on my death bed and smile.
Summer of 1978. I had my first horse and a group of us at the stable I boarded at got together for a night time trail ride. There was a big full moon and millions of stars in the sky. We came to the edge of the woods where a huge meadow stretched out in front of us, sloping downhill to the big lake. we all just stopped and were totally silent.
The hill was COVERED with fireflies. Literally covered. And everything- fireflies, moon and stars, were all reflected in the lake. I was breathless. I will never forget it. Ever.
