On the last day, we hadn't had quite enough flying, so we rented an older Cessna 172 Skyhawk

from CFI in Sacramento and flew to Georgetown Airport. It is located in the Sierra foothills

and you can see from the LH downwind circuit picture below, it is also surrounded by trees!

We approached from the south west, departing from Sac Exec (KSAC) Airport

and elected to land on runway 16. What I didn't know was that the runway dipped in the middle

and had a sharp drop off at the 16 end! This resulted in a rather high approach and a bit of dashboard grabbing by Rachel as I struggled to bring us down before running out of black stuff!

Short finals 16, note how high we are!

We landed with a bump about 3/4 of the way down, missed the apron turn-off and had to back track.

What a beautiful airport and what a strange plane! Apparently, you don't need a license to fly ultra lights in the US, scary!

It was a lovely afternoon, temperature in the late 80's, bright sunshine and a friendly welcome in the club house.

The lady said that as this was our first time into Georgetown, we were entitled to a certificate to say we made it! At this point I told her we almost didn't to which she replied, "Yes, its very common for 1st timers to come in too high!". Pity the flight guide didn't warn us. Alas, she had run out of these rewards, so we will have to pick it up on our next visit.

At this point, Rachel, unknown to me, took this picture:

After having a drink and buying some lovely airplane board pins,

we took a walk around the field to see the camp site and take a look at the drop off at the end of runway 16 to see if it was really as bad as it looked! The camp site was equally lovely,

and it even had hot showers! Rachel also noticed these wild Orchids growing on one of the paths.

The view from the campsite across the runway, shows the beautiful location and the airport lake in the foreground.

Walking down to the end of runway 16, gave us an idea just how steep the drop off was. This does not really get reflected in the pictures but trust me, it was steep!

The kink in the middle of the runway can also be seen in this picture.

Yes, Rachel really did walk to the end of the runway as well!

Like a lot of airports in the US, Georgetown has no control tower, so notices such as this are necessary.

We left for the short journey back to Sac Exec and flew over the Snowberry Inn!

and Folsom Lake.

Approaching Sacramento, view of downtown from the right hand side of the aircraft

and as we were handed over to Exec tower, we were cleared to land from 5 miles out on Runway 20.