I drove south from the SF Bay area to Santa Barbara yesterday. I was happy to get out of the foggy coast because I hadn't seen the sun in days since it got up to 97 degrees inland and sucked all the fog on shore. So, I noticed (once I found the sun inland) that the Super Bloom was happening with wild mustard and purple Lupine and many other varieties of Yellow, Gold like poppies, Purple or blue like Lupine, and white Daisies and other flowers were majorly decorating the green hillsides like they haven't been decorated in maybe 20 years? or more.
It reminded me of the Desert Blooms in Palm Springs and Yucca Valley that I had seen with my parents growing up in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond helping build my father and mother's retirement home on 2 1/2 acres of land above Yucca Valley on the High Desert there. My father bought 2 1/2 acres near his friend's 2 1/2 acres. We used to fly to Yucca Valley Airport in his friends 1949 Stinson Airplane which seat about 4 people and is a high wing aircraft which makes it much easier to see down from (the high wings). Though you can build stronger wings when you have the wings beneath the fuselage on a plane it is nice to see the ground so well with a higher wing plane.
My father's friend let me fly the plane between San Jacinto Mountain and San Gorgonio mountain back to Los Angeles once. He showed me how to "Crab" into the wind so we wouldn't be blown into a mountain in a strong Cross wind. In order to do this you use the pedals which controls the rudder so this causes to you basically fly somewhat sideways but it keeps the wind from blowing you into a mountain the same altitude you are in a small plane.
This type of thing is much less of a problem if you are flying in a jet above 15,000 feet simply because there are NO mountains above 14,000 feet in the lower 48 states on the Mainland. But, I think in Alaska you have at least one peak at 20,000 feet.
Yes. Denali is over 20,000 feet high.
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Denali - National Geographic Society
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