I have a confession to make.
I have a mistress. Ever since I went to the Black Rock Desert for the first time four years ago I've been in love with it. It is a dry lake bed about one hundred miles north of Reno, NV near the towns of Gerlach and Empire. It's one of the flattest most desolate places on earth and the feeling one gets standing in the middle of the playa is indescribable. So when a friend of mine called on Sunday, a day that I had set aside to spend with the little woman, and asked me if I'd like to fly there with him, I was a bit conflicted.
My friend Steve has a Cessna 210T and he wanted to fly out to Black Rock and land on the playa. Meredith was invited to come as well, but she felt that since she'd never been up in a single-engine plane that flying over the Sierra Nevadas and landing off-airport on a surface known for eating airplanes might not be the best idea. I didn't feel like her decision was particularly unwise. It would suck to be stuck in what is essentially an old VW bug with wings for a couple of hours while overcome with fear for one's life. That and it made it easier for Steve and me to make the call to land on the playa without having to be concerned over someone else's well-being. We had been conspiring to take this trip for some time and knew that landing there would be a bit risky.
Since I had previously committed to spending time the day with her, I told Meredith that my time was hers. She released me from my committment and told me to go have fun, which is exactly what I did. I jumped in the truck, drove over to pick up Steve and then headed to the Reid-Hillview airport in San Jose.
I picked up some supplies along the way to the airport. Mostly, I wanted to make sure that I had my GPS with spare batteries and some water, in the event that we got stuck out there for a while. I have topographical maps of Northern California and Nevada which would've been nice as well. Unfortunately, I went off and forgot those. We got to the airport, ordered up some fuel and got started. The fuel guy shorted us by about ten gallons which would necessitate a stop for fuel on the way back.
We took the Calaveras departure out of RHV and flew over some very pretty areas just east of San Jose. I was able to get the camera out and get a photo of the Del Valle Resevoir shown here:
The weather report suggested that cloud cover was pretty thick over Reno, but we decided to chance it. Once we got out over the central valley we had to ascend quite a bit to actually get over the clouds. Our cruise altitude was around 14,500' which meant that oxygen was needed. We got flight following from ATC. When we told them that we were going to 1A8 in Empire (the nearest airport) they explained that they didn't have it in their database. Once we got into the ATC region that actually controlled that airspace, they noted that they only get a flight in there once every few months.
We crossed the Central Valley pretty quickly and then over the Sierra Nevadas. I snapped a picture as we flew over Lake Tahoe:
As we approached Black Rock we started to get a bit worried as there was no sign that the cloud cover would break. Knowing the weather in the area pretty well, I felt confident that there had to be something in the arid valley that runs through most of northern Nevada. About 60 miles out from our destination, there was enough of a rift in the cloud cover that we were able to drop below it. Breaking down through the clouds looked a bit like this:
That's the town of Empire in the center of the photo. The large white spot is the gypsum plant that employs most of the folks in that town. The black splotch on the leftmost side of the photograph is the town of Gerlach, home of Bruno's Country Club. Bruno's is more of a restaurant, casino, and hotel, such as it is. I've never slept on a more uncomfortable bed in my life than at Bruno's hotel. However, the ravioli is good and the scottish waitress that addresses everybody as "hon" is grumpy in a fun sort of way. Bruno himself is quite a character. As I understand it, he owns most of the town, has been there for 40 years and still can't speak English worth a damn. I've had long, drunken, meaningful conversations with Bruno where I'm certain that neither of us understood a word the other was saying. Mostly, I just smile and nod.
We passed over Empire and Gerlach and descended over the playa to have a look and try to scope out a decent place to land. As we got closer to the playa, landing on it became more of an inevitability. We took one pass over the lake bed and noted that the northern end was pretty wet and muddy so we decided to swing back around to the southern end where we had spotted some land sailors camped out right on top of the area where Burning Man normally takes place. We buzzed them once, headed back to the north and picked a spot to land next to some tire tracks that went straight on for several miles. We made one pass low and slow to make sure that it was a smooth surface and then came back around for the landing. I got a little uneasy during the final turn as it was a high bank and we started dropping altitude. It's difficult to judge height while one is in the air out there and I know of one group of folks that crashed by side-slipping into the ground. I noted the loss of altitude to Steve who confirmed that was his intention. As we lined up for the landing, Steve instructed me to look ahead for bumps and call the landing as he had to devote his entire attention to gauging the altitude out of the left window. The landing went well except for the fact that it took a long time to actually get the plane down. I became concerned that we were going to run out of the area that we had scoped out. We taxied back around for several minutes and stopped about a quarter mile outside the camp where the land sailors were. As soon as we got out of the plane, the reason for the long landing became evident. There was a 30mph blowing precisely in the direction that we were landing which made it difficult to slow down. I should've guessed this myself since the prevailing wind normally comes from the southwest.
Safely down:
After landing, we kissed the ground and walked over to where the land sailors were. They were a nice group of people - a couple of older couples. I met a guy named Rick who was also from San Jose. He asked me to ferry a message back to his daughter to send out a component that he'd forgotten at home. He also offered to give me one of his older land yachts when I expressed an interest in having one. Don't tell Meredith though, I'll have to figure out a place to hide it first. We watched Rick tool around on his land yacht a bit and then decided to head back as we had a fairly tight schedule.
We took off, heading into the wind this time, and headed north for a pass around the Black Rock itself. Steve kept us down around 100' off the ground and quickly accelerated to about 160kts. I think he was accustomed to staying at full power for a much longer period of time for ascent and gained a lot of velocity when he leveled out at low altitude. We passed by the Black Rock:
...and then headed for home pretty much the same way we came. We flew at 13,500' this time and didn't see anything interesting except clouds. Which aren't that interesting after a minute and a half anyway. We stopped for fuel in Auburn, CA which was pretty exciting in that we had too much altitude so Steve dropped the plane like a rock on final and leveled off at the last second. This is a typical short-field landing procedure, though the field wasn't that short. Steve filled her up (69 gallons at $3.50 ouch)
and we headed on home, arriving just after dark.
The rest of the photos can be seen here, and for you gun folks, I took this just because I could.
My friend Steve has a Cessna 210T and he wanted to fly out to Black Rock and land on the playa. Meredith was invited to come as well, but she felt that since she'd never been up in a single-engine plane that flying over the Sierra Nevadas and landing off-airport on a surface known for eating airplanes might not be the best idea. I didn't feel like her decision was particularly unwise. It would suck to be stuck in what is essentially an old VW bug with wings for a couple of hours while overcome with fear for one's life. That and it made it easier for Steve and me to make the call to land on the playa without having to be concerned over someone else's well-being. We had been conspiring to take this trip for some time and knew that landing there would be a bit risky.
Since I had previously committed to spending time the day with her, I told Meredith that my time was hers. She released me from my committment and told me to go have fun, which is exactly what I did. I jumped in the truck, drove over to pick up Steve and then headed to the Reid-Hillview airport in San Jose.
I picked up some supplies along the way to the airport. Mostly, I wanted to make sure that I had my GPS with spare batteries and some water, in the event that we got stuck out there for a while. I have topographical maps of Northern California and Nevada which would've been nice as well. Unfortunately, I went off and forgot those. We got to the airport, ordered up some fuel and got started. The fuel guy shorted us by about ten gallons which would necessitate a stop for fuel on the way back.
We took the Calaveras departure out of RHV and flew over some very pretty areas just east of San Jose. I was able to get the camera out and get a photo of the Del Valle Resevoir shown here:
The weather report suggested that cloud cover was pretty thick over Reno, but we decided to chance it. Once we got out over the central valley we had to ascend quite a bit to actually get over the clouds. Our cruise altitude was around 14,500' which meant that oxygen was needed. We got flight following from ATC. When we told them that we were going to 1A8 in Empire (the nearest airport) they explained that they didn't have it in their database. Once we got into the ATC region that actually controlled that airspace, they noted that they only get a flight in there once every few months.
We crossed the Central Valley pretty quickly and then over the Sierra Nevadas. I snapped a picture as we flew over Lake Tahoe:
As we approached Black Rock we started to get a bit worried as there was no sign that the cloud cover would break. Knowing the weather in the area pretty well, I felt confident that there had to be something in the arid valley that runs through most of northern Nevada. About 60 miles out from our destination, there was enough of a rift in the cloud cover that we were able to drop below it. Breaking down through the clouds looked a bit like this:
That's the town of Empire in the center of the photo. The large white spot is the gypsum plant that employs most of the folks in that town. The black splotch on the leftmost side of the photograph is the town of Gerlach, home of Bruno's Country Club. Bruno's is more of a restaurant, casino, and hotel, such as it is. I've never slept on a more uncomfortable bed in my life than at Bruno's hotel. However, the ravioli is good and the scottish waitress that addresses everybody as "hon" is grumpy in a fun sort of way. Bruno himself is quite a character. As I understand it, he owns most of the town, has been there for 40 years and still can't speak English worth a damn. I've had long, drunken, meaningful conversations with Bruno where I'm certain that neither of us understood a word the other was saying. Mostly, I just smile and nod.
We passed over Empire and Gerlach and descended over the playa to have a look and try to scope out a decent place to land. As we got closer to the playa, landing on it became more of an inevitability. We took one pass over the lake bed and noted that the northern end was pretty wet and muddy so we decided to swing back around to the southern end where we had spotted some land sailors camped out right on top of the area where Burning Man normally takes place. We buzzed them once, headed back to the north and picked a spot to land next to some tire tracks that went straight on for several miles. We made one pass low and slow to make sure that it was a smooth surface and then came back around for the landing. I got a little uneasy during the final turn as it was a high bank and we started dropping altitude. It's difficult to judge height while one is in the air out there and I know of one group of folks that crashed by side-slipping into the ground. I noted the loss of altitude to Steve who confirmed that was his intention. As we lined up for the landing, Steve instructed me to look ahead for bumps and call the landing as he had to devote his entire attention to gauging the altitude out of the left window. The landing went well except for the fact that it took a long time to actually get the plane down. I became concerned that we were going to run out of the area that we had scoped out. We taxied back around for several minutes and stopped about a quarter mile outside the camp where the land sailors were. As soon as we got out of the plane, the reason for the long landing became evident. There was a 30mph blowing precisely in the direction that we were landing which made it difficult to slow down. I should've guessed this myself since the prevailing wind normally comes from the southwest.
Safely down:
After landing, we kissed the ground and walked over to where the land sailors were. They were a nice group of people - a couple of older couples. I met a guy named Rick who was also from San Jose. He asked me to ferry a message back to his daughter to send out a component that he'd forgotten at home. He also offered to give me one of his older land yachts when I expressed an interest in having one. Don't tell Meredith though, I'll have to figure out a place to hide it first. We watched Rick tool around on his land yacht a bit and then decided to head back as we had a fairly tight schedule.
We took off, heading into the wind this time, and headed north for a pass around the Black Rock itself. Steve kept us down around 100' off the ground and quickly accelerated to about 160kts. I think he was accustomed to staying at full power for a much longer period of time for ascent and gained a lot of velocity when he leveled out at low altitude. We passed by the Black Rock:
...and then headed for home pretty much the same way we came. We flew at 13,500' this time and didn't see anything interesting except clouds. Which aren't that interesting after a minute and a half anyway. We stopped for fuel in Auburn, CA which was pretty exciting in that we had too much altitude so Steve dropped the plane like a rock on final and leveled off at the last second. This is a typical short-field landing procedure, though the field wasn't that short. Steve filled her up (69 gallons at $3.50 ouch)
and we headed on home, arriving just after dark.
The rest of the photos can be seen here, and for you gun folks, I took this just because I could.
