This evening, at dusk, I made a quick flight from Perkins (a tiny airfield northeast of Las Vegas) to Boulder City. Perkins supposedly has ultralight activity around the airport, but I didn't expect to see any at this time of day, since it was already getting quite dark.I'm becoming increasingly wary of nighttime VFR, as I've been killed several times over the years as a result of taking stupid risks in the dark. This evening I had the sectional next to me, held by my virtual passenger (three passengers with me on this flight), and I followed a route that took me out over Lake Mead, since I could at least see this in the darkness below me, and it doesn't have any pesky mountains to rise up and swat at my aircraft. I headed roughly for Echo Bay, then eased my way between the two peaks in the Black Mountains to join the 214 radial from BLD. However, part-way across the lake I could already see the field, so I was able to just aim for it, carefully avoiding any black areas that might be hiding mountains (there shouldn't be anything on the east side of Boulder at 4200 feet, but I'm getting more and more paranoid).
Landing was completed without incident. My passengers got a great view of Hoover Dam all lit up from the airplane as I entered a right base for runway 15.
