The evening’s mission was to fly myself and a colleague to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to attend a meeting the following morning. It was winter, with early sunsets, and we didn’t get airborne until well after dark, but I was night current, thanks to doing my instrument training at night, after work. I was close, but not ready for the rating checkride. A high overcast meant this VFR-only hop would be in dark night conditions, but the abundant ground lighting provided ample information on which way was up. The flight to IPT was uneventful and soon I had the destination airport in sight. We were the only aircraft at the then-non-towered airport. Winds were fairly strong and steady out of the north, so I chose Runway 30.
Maneuvering to enter the left downwind, I noticed the surface lights on a nearby ridge were really close. They distracted me and kept me high, but I didn’t think about it enough to extend the downwind to allow for a descent from the higher altitude. On final, I was way too high and fast for the Cherokee I was flying to get down and stopped, so I went around. Rejoining the left downwind, I slowed down and stayed about the same distance from the ridge as before. Extending the downwind slightly, I managed to convince the Cherokee to slow down and get down well enough that we made a decent landing, never mind that we used most of the runway.
