I bought a Phantom 3 drone a month ago to use for video and photos.  Yesterday, I got to ride in a much bigger, much nicer one, a Bell 407. I hope as I go through life, the only time I have to ride in an AirMed helicopter is when I am up shooting photos.

Paul Hewitt, a friend, fellow Rotarian, and runner, is our Park City Fire Chief.  He set up a ride with our local helicopter ambulance company, AirMed, which is part of University Health Care.  The idea was to fly around the local fire district, checking out the foliage (dry versus green).  I got to tag along and take some photos.  What an opportunity!

For those in Park City, the AirMed office and landing zone is over near Promontory, tucked back away from all the houses.  It is conveniently close to Park City, but out where the helicopter noise doesn't upset the locals.

My photos aren't terribly artistic.  I was shooting out a little hole in the door's window and as nice as this helicopter is, we weren't exactly sitting still.  You will notice some pieces of helicopter showing up in some of the photos.

This past year, Park City, Summit County, the DOT and a few others got together to build this very nice tunnel under highway 40.  Humans can traverse through it, but the main push was for all the deer, elk and moose.  There had been a lot of big road kill accidents in this stretch.

This is the Park City Heights subdivision, out by the hospital.  They started building 2 or 3 years ago, but ran into some EPA issues with mine tailings.  Seems like it will be a long time before we see houses.

The first stage of our new movie studio is nearing completion.  Eventually there will be a hotel and a few other buildings around it.  I don't know the details, but I heard that they are already successful at finding companies to pay for the space.  Maybe it won't have to be converted to a Target store after all.

This is the lower half of Old Town.  The big building on the right is the newly refreshed library.  Most of the ski runs are Park City Mountain Resort, with a few from Deer Valley on the far left.

And the upper half of Old Town.

Same area, but looking back through town towards I-80.

Can't fly around Park City without taking a picture of the house.  Right below the white spot on the hill is our ex-house.  Our condo is just to the right of it.

Another view of our neighborhood, looking from the northwest.  This elevation is the only way you can see the entire neighborhood at once.

This is the base of Park City.  This may be one of those great pictures to look back at a decade or two from now for a before and after.  That base area will see some very serious development.

Wonder how Vail is doing on development of the new Gondola and the Snow Hut restaurant?  Right now, they are basically a big hole in the ground.

Here is a closer look. The gondola base will be on the left and Snow Hut will be on the right.  They have a long way to go before the ski season.

The Montage hotel, up at Deer Valley.

This is the Hotel Park City, which also serves as the clubhouse for the municipal golf course.

The Utah Olympic Park.  The big Nordic ski jumps are on the left.  The luge and bobsled track is on the right. The collection of white lines in the bottom, middle are the practice jumps for the ski jumping.  You can see the big pool they land in.  They just rebuilt that entire area with new jumps, a new pool, and even a climbing wall.

While a lot of my pictures were a bit soft, this one came out very sharp.  Zoomed way in, you can see some of the jumpers standing on the jumps.

And the last photo is a shot showing the huge value of having conservation easements on local land.  The pretty green area is the Swaner Nature Preserve.  The closest area is Kimball Junction.  The contrast is amazing.

Getting to take these shots was a fantastic opportunity.  A huge thanks to both Paul Hewitt and the great group at AirMed!