Christian Gehrke
LINE OF SIGHTThe quarterly of the patient aerial
The Blue Hour Issue

Drone flight pushing in.

How I Got the Shot

Clear water in March

A short March morning on the Skunk Harbor trail at Lake Tahoe: Christian rode down to the shore and back up with Marley along, and spent most of two hours flying a drone over clear water, snowy granite and the posts of an old dock while Marley went swimming.

By GlazyArray, Aerial Desk · Skunk Harbor

More from LINE OF SIGHT → The newsstand

Listen · 3:19The posts in the shallows

The route

3.2 miDistance
6,827 ftHigh point

The map shows 2.8 mi of the 3.2 mi; the numbers count all of it.

I started rolling just before nine on March 14, headed down the Skunk Harbor trail to Lake Tahoe with Marley along. The bike was just the way down to the water and back up again: about three miles, a little under six hundred feet of climbing, and only twenty-two minutes of actual moving. The whole morning took a bit over two hours.

9:33. Pines down to the waterline, a building tucked in at the cove.
9:33. Pines down to the waterline, a building tucked in at the cove.

The drone's morning

9:35. Snow between the trees and long shadows on the water.
9:35. Snow between the trees and long shadows on the water.

The rest of the time went to the drone. Skunk Harbor is a place where it's allowed, and I'd wanted to see this stretch of shore from above. Mornings with Marley tend to go like that. We get there, and then nobody's in a hurry.

10:10. Along the shore, with snowy mountains across the lake.
10:10. Along the shore, with snowy mountains across the lake.

Marley went swimming. She's in the drone video, out in that clear water, with snow still on the shore.

We get there, and then nobody's in a hurry.

10:16. A small cove, old buildings in the trees and a line of old posts in the water.
10:16. A small cove, old buildings in the trees and a line of old posts in the water.

Straight down

The first shots are from about half past nine. There was still snow in patches under the pines and tucked between the granite, and the sun was low enough that the trees threw long shadows far out over the water. Straight down, the lake is so clear the boulders under the surface show every edge, brown and green against the turquoise, with the shallows fading into deep blue farther out.

Just after ten I took the drone along the shore. The forest runs right down to the rocks, and across the lake the mountains were still white.

Flying with Marley while she swims.

The old dock

flying over lake tahoe near skunk harbor.

The last shot is the one I keep coming back to. A small cove, a few old buildings back in the trees, and a line of posts standing in the shallows. The buildings are only shells now, gutted inside and not fit to live in. The posts are what's left of an old dock from long ago. Nothing on top of them now, just the posts and their shadows on the sand.

Looking down over Skunk Harbor.

Back up the hill

Flying away from the shore over Lake Tahoe.

Then it was back on the bike and up the hill. The top speed for the day was around twenty-six miles an hour, which on a three-mile ride tells you how the way down went.