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Here is a shorter story from a helicopter in the air--not on the ground. This was a "Big First" as well as a "Little First" This was the first-ever exploration of two unknown tepuys in Amazonas territory under the auspices of Terramar described in HREF "Lost Worlds Found" HREF. But the little first is Kurt Johnson's first time ever in a helicopter. He asked me with studied non-chalance "Are you better in a fixed wing aircraft or one of these, if one should happen to come down?" Over the roar of the rotors, I asked "How long would you think this craft would float up here without power in comparison to a plane?" He thought about it only a few minutes before responding "Better not tell my wife."
The pilot expertly came up under the cloud cap that was blanketing the top of Yutaje Tepuy, and edged over closer to the shear wall of the mesa. He was looking for a break in the cloud cover and saw one where the cloud was streaming up and over the summit. In sidling in, the chopper rode the uprising thermals slipping up the mountainface without changing the pitch or speed. We lost the lift as we crested Yutaje Tepuy and he looked quickly for a place to set down, before the clouds would close in. There was thick vegetation in a profuse variety over the serrated top of the tepuy, but there was also a flat rock river bed leading over to the side of the tepuy from which a magnificent waterfall cascaded over the side into the thin air we had just ridden up the mountainface.
The only landing site, and that did not seem safe until the surrounding dwarfed trees and shrubs were hacked back with a machete, would be the rocky riverbed. So, I got the short straw. I became the first to touchdown on the top of Yutaje Tepuy, and not by climbing it, since it still remains unclimbable. But I rappelled off the skids of the hovering chopper into the slippery smooth river bed, and hacked away--hardly a gentle reception on man's first encounter with this mountaintop!
That's one small step for man, and thirty whacks for your as yet unknown and unclassified flora!