Truckee - Mountain Flying

On a recent trip my friend Michael and I headed up to Truckee. Michael called me to see if I could fly along as his safety pilot for some IFR practice including some IFR approaches. First we headed to Sacramento Executive for a practice ILS on 20 and from there via Auburn up to Truckee. Some of the peaks around Truckee reach over 9000 feet and so we cruised along at 11,500 and dropped into Truckee for a 45 minute bio break. Truckee has a delightful pilot lounge. Definitely worth a visit. Definitely download the arrival and departure procedure guide before you go. The airport web site for KTRK is quite useful and packed with well arranged information including some waypoints for the GPS. We checked TFRs for Tahoe due to some recent fires and received the green light. Our route back we decided to skirt Lake Tahoe and got a chance to survey the fire damage from the air. You can still see some smoke hanging over the recently charred landscape. The third picture shows South Lake Tahoe as we head out towards the central valley.