The Colorado River Headwaters: Part 4

I set up my drone on the edge of the parking lot, going through my pre-flight checklist with the same attention to detail I once applied to Baron preflight inspections. Battery charged? Check. GPS locked? Check. Return-to-home point set? Check. Wind conditions? Zero. The air was so still that I could hear the gentle lap of water against the rocky shore.

There's something almost spiritual about launching a camera drone on a morning like this. The little aircraft lifts off with that distinctive whine of electric motors, and suddenly you're not bound to the earth anymore. The perspective shifts instantly, and the world reveals itself in ways that are impossible to appreciate from ground level.

I pushed the control sticks forward gently, and the drone climbed into that cloudless blue Colorado sky. Below, Grand Lake spread out in all its magnificent glory—Colorado's largest and deepest natural lake, sitting at 8,369 feet above sea level. From my new aerial vantage point, I could see why Grand Lake has been called the "Soul of the Rockies."

One of the responsibilities that comes with drone photography is respecting people's privacy. It's a lesson I carry from my journalism days at the University of Houston and reinforced by decades of working with people in various capacities. Just because technology allows you to peer into places doesn't mean you should.

When I fly, I'm conscious of where my camera points. I'm capturing landscapes, not invading private moments. The town of Grand Lake passed beneath my lens, but I kept the camera angle high and wide, focusing on the relationship between human settlement and natural environment rather than zooming in on individual properties or people.

This becomes particularly important in small mountain communities where people have chosen to live precisely because they value their privacy and connection to nature. The last thing I want to do is make someone feel like their sanctuary has been violated by a hovering camera.

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