Day 2, June 13, 2000 - Cedar City, UT to Cameron Park, CA
When I got up Tuesday morning I went out to get my weather briefing from specialist Bundy. There was no weather to speak of, but the wind was forecast to be pretty much directly on the nose at about 30 knots. Oh well! Normally I go as low as possible when there is a headwind, but on this trip I was not in the mood to slog around in the passes at low altitude. The leg was short anyway at 376 nautical miles (433 statute) so I decided to just cruise along high and relaxed.
Initially I tried 12,500 for a cruise altitude, but sure enough there was about a 25 knot headwind component. I got a little impatient with 143 knots ground speed so went up to 14,500 just to give it a try. Wow! At this altitude there was only a 3 or 4 knot headwind component. That worked well so I tried 16,500 and found that the winds increased again, so it was back down to 14,500 for the remainder of the trip. I sure can't explain how the winds can act like this, but on this day 14,500 was just the sweet altitude.
Over Nevada
This panel shot was taken after I stabilized at 14,500 over Nevada. Indicated airspeed is 132 knots. The Rocky Mountain Microencoder is showing 173 knots TAS and 49 degrees F. The GPS at upper right is showing a GS of 169 knots (195 mph) and 31 minutes left to Cameron Park. I will take a 4 knot headwind westbound at 14,500 MSL any day of the week.
Basin and Range
Central Nevada is mountainous and the mountains are unusual. Imagine separating childrens blocks so there is a little space in between them. Then tilt the blocks so there are in contact again. Now fill in the low part of the zigzag that has been created by the tilting. This is Central Nevada. It is called basin and range, and that is what it is. For virtually the whole width of the state you cross a long, straight mountain range, followed by a long straight valley or basin, followed by another long, straight mountain range. It repeats again and again in a very regular fashion. See John McPhee's excellent book, called, appropriately enough, "Basin and Range."
As you can see from the photo below, 14,500 MSL is non too high through here. Yes there is still some snow left on these Nevada peaks.
Nevada Mountains
Along toward the end of basin and range I noticed the little town of Hawthorne, Nevada. Radiating out from this compact town in all directions are roads and what appears to be hundreds and hundreds of bunkers, some of which are visible in the photograph. Now I don't know what they do here, but my best guess would be that it involves high explosives.
Hawthorne, Nevada
I have flown in and around mountains for all the time I have been flying. 172's in Nevada and Utah, 182's and Grummans in Utah, and gliders in Colorado and New Mexico, but I have never flown my own airplane over the Sierra Nevada. Probably because of unfamiliarity I have always been a little intimidated by this range. With the Pacer I would go to some lengths to fly around the south end, and that is a lot of trouble because of restricted areas. Now that I have a high performance fighter, I decided to go right over.
Sierra Nevada Range
My route over the Sierra Nevada took me between Lake Tahoe and Mono Lake. I was closer to Tahoe, but could clearly see Mono off to my left.
Lake Tahoe
Boy, Tahoe is a pretty big lake, and looks even bigger perched up high in the mountains the way it is.
The smaller mountain lakes looked like they may be mostly thawed, I couldn't tell for sure. In the photo below it looks like there may still be patches of ice. Still quite a bit of snow!
High Sierra Lake
The Sierra Nevada is pretty steep on the east side but has a very gentle slope on the west. Most mountains, you feel like you are over them over you cross the peaks. Not so here.
I had to start a descent to Cameron Park or I would be way too high, but the slope of the mountains is so gentle I was close to the ground for the whole descent. That made me a little uneasy over this heavily wooded terrain, but the worst part was the landing pattern in Cameron Park.
Cameron Park is a really pretty little airport that is still in the foothills, before the flat, flat terrain of Sacramento proper. It is tucked in between hills that are covered with expensive looking houses. The problem is I am used to wide open spaces and I just could not see anyplace to put an airplane, except tree tops, in case of any engine problem. Locals probably know of places, but it was kind of scary for me.
The buddy I was visiting in Orangevale had recommended Cameron Park Airport as being convenient to his home. I like these little airports but there is often a problem with rental cars at this kind of place. A lot of times someone has to come from a faraway place to give you a ride to the rental place. Sometimes they want money for the ride. Surprisingly there were two car rental places that AOPA listed for O61. One was Dave's Car Rental. Sounds interesting.
I called up from Cedar City and talked to laidback, California Dave. He said "cool" a lot, and when I offered a credit card number he said "no, I trust you." Dave said I would see his place at the end of the runway on the airport.
Dave's turned out to be a real nice place a 5 minute stroll from transient parking. It is the best car rental experience I have ever had. Very friendly, nice cars and the cheapest rental I had on the trip. Someone else was talking to Dave at one point and I overheard him saying he has 180 cars. Visible through an open door was a Corvette and a Prowler with the matching trailer. He can't be making a living from airport rentals, so he most have a lot of customers from the local area. I hope he's still there next time I'm through.
With the time change, I arrived at Cameron Park at 9:30 in the morning. That's what flying can do. I still had the whole day ahead of me after what would have been a long day in a car.
My college buddy would not get off work from Intel until about 4:00 so I explored a bit. This was unexpectedly pretty country with rolling hills, lots of trees, and not much population. I drove out to Sutter's Mill. The Mill itself is long gone but the actual tail race where gold was first discovered is still there. It was fun to just look at that spot and realize what happened (The California Gold Rush of 1849) from that discovery. I found that spot much more interesting than the reconstructed stuff in the park.
It was pretty here, but it was starting to get real warm. The high this day turned out to be around 105 degrees and 110 degrees the next day. Way too much like home. Even San Francisco was incredibly hot. I was looking forward to going to Missoula the next day.
After all of us, including Billy the dog, took a walk along the American River, we visited late into the night. We looked at old college yearbooks, discussed movies, and listened to rock and roll music.
For this leg of 376 nautical miles (433 statute), the time was 2.6 hours and Blackbelly took 20.7 gallons for a burn of 7.96 gph at an average speed of 145 knots (166 mph). Fuel here was $2.19, the best of the trip. I'm kind of envious of those people on the other side of the runway with airplane garages under their houses.