mindenpilot wrote:
From the time I hit Tahoe, until I get to Placerville, there is
literally
NOWHERE to safely put it down.
In fact, I don't think I could even walk away from the plane if I had
to put
it down.

With that in mind, what difference would it make if it was light or
dark
outside the plane?
I'd be dead either way, right?

Sounds about right. There are certain situations where VMC/IMC and
day/night make no difference (provided the pilot is prepared to control
the plane by reference to instruments) - and those situations are where
the terrain is uniformly bad (overwater) or uniformly good (nothing but
fields). Maybe the Sierras really are uniformly bad.

Thing is, while I've never flown the Sierras, I've made three crossings
over the Rockies doing the Houston-San Francisco run. Two of them were
day-VMC, and one included night and IMC flying.

The day-VMC crossings had a very low pucker factor, in spite of being
in a low power airplane. I flew my route so there was always someplace
reasonably flat to set down. Not good enough to save the plane, but
probably good enough to walk away. Maybe. But I didn't fly a straight
route. I mostly followed I-10 and flew the passes.

The crossing that included the night and IMC time (and some night IMC)
was in a much higher powered and much better equipped single (a
full-IFR A-36) but I must say the pucker factor was high. I flew the
airways because the OROCA's were too high and we had no oxygen. I knew
that if the engine decided to take a dump, our chances were not good.

I did it because I had a schedule to keep, a plane to move, and the guy
who hired me didn't hire me to sit on my ass because the engine might
quit. And the engine was in good shape, and the plane had a good
annual and several hours after the annual to shake out the bugs, and so
I judged the risk to be fairly low. In a typical rental, I might not
have done it - and I sure wouldn't do it all the time. The odds will
catch up with you eventually.

Michael