Last weekend, Harold Hasselbach drove to Nevada, seeking wide open spaces where he can fire his cannon.

He ended up in Carson Sink, about 60 miles east of Reno. According to Wikipedia, Carson Sink is a 300 square mile playa in the Lahontan Valley of northwestern Nevada. It’s the central portion of prehistoric Lake Lahontan, which existed in northwestern Nevada at the end of the last ice age, between 20,000 and 9,000 years ago.

As Harold says, “I finally found a place where there are no crowds.”

While he was there, Harold decided to fly his MiniMag, equipped with a small digital camera.

The plane flew fast because the air is thin, he says. Carson Sink is about a mile above sea level.

Despite the airspeed, the little camera captured clear, dramatic and beautiful pictures, many showing Harold as an antlike figure near the center of the image.

In person, Harold is hardly antlike. He’s a robust kind of guy, a strong guy who can hoist a 200-lb. cannon into a trailer.

Here’s a selection of his fine aerial photos.

Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Gallery.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Elsewhere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.