OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. — Michael Kennedy said he was writing at his desk in front of his balcony window Wednesday morning in Olympic Valley when he saw a burst of light coming through the clouds right above the crest of the mountain. What he saw next would take his breath away, he said.
Around 8:15 a.m., he went out on his balcony to take pictures of this sunrise, like he usually does.
It was more than a beautiful sunrise. He said once he posted it online, people said it looked like a “cosmic martini” or a “chalice.” Kennedy, 60, now calls it a “cosmic chalice.”
“Then, I looked up above it and I realized it was forming into a chalice, like a cosmic chalice, and inside that chalice was all this movement of crystals moving like a living organism in the sky, high above the mountain and huge in shape," he said.
The rare phenomenon Kennedy experienced is called an upper tangent arc, according to the National Weather Service. They can form when hexagonal, rod-shaped ice crystals in cirrus clouds have their long axis horizontally oriented, the service said.
They form when the sun is rising, according to weather officials.
“I was just in awe,” Kennedy said. “It's kind of hard to put in words.”
Kennedy said he called his wife down to come see it.
“Nicola came down, she goes, ‘you know, you're barefoot, right?’” he said. “I walked outside barefoot on ice, and my feet were stuck to the ground. I wasn't even aware of the cold because I was so breath-taken by that sight.”
About four and a half years ago, Kennedy said he moved to Placer County after visiting his brother who worked at the Everline Resort.
“I fell in love and I flew out and like so many other people,” he said. “I have a real passion for hiking up these hills in the summertime.”
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