View Full Version : Night Hiking with No Moonlight
Greetings,
I am planning on starting a long day hike early in the morning on 10/28, which will involve 2-3 hours of night hiking prior to twilight. I was hoping to get some tips from anyone that has night-hiking experience - especially those who have not relied on moonlight for their night hiking (the moon will have set already on 10/28). Can anyone recommend any lighting strategies?
My current plan would be to strap a headlamp around my waist (easier to see for my footing?) and have a second headlamp up top to see out a little further. Thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
colorado_rob
10-10-2017, 14:08
I do a LOT of night hiking, basically mostly approaches for climbs. I once left camp at 10pm to make a summit at daybreak, when conditions deteriorate quickly, and we regularly leave camp at 3-4am for summits.
Anyway, I do use the double-lamp scheme, it works great. One on your head for overall illumination, the other held low. The key aspect of the low one is that it casts nice long shadows on rocks/roots/whatever on the trail. The lamp on your head does NOT cast shadows, because it is too near to your eyes, and sometimes rocks blend in well to the trail and, well, have a nice trip! Demonstrate his to yourself sometime; in the dark on a trail sometime, hold the lamp near your eyes, then lower it and watch the shadows on trail irregularities appear. Most people don't get or understand this headlamps-cast-minimal-shadow concept.
Tipi Walter
10-10-2017, 14:10
It really depends on the trail. Knowing the trail helps on a nighthike, unless the trail is a well maintained thing with hatch marks like on the AT. And even then it can get tricky with road crossings and creek crossings. But as anyone who backpacks in the Southeast knows, you can tell whether you're on a trail at night just by the feel of it under your boots---a trail typically is compacted while off the trail is not.
I just pulled a 5 mile nighthike off Big Frog Mt on the BMT as Hurricane Irma got me to bail off the high ground---I knew this trail well anyway.
People nighthike the AT all the time. My only advice is to have fresh batts for your headlamp and the more light the better.
MuddyWaters
10-10-2017, 14:26
Your overthinking it.
Just walk. Its not a big deal .
Ive hiked a couple hundred mikes in dark. By 20L light. Never tripped.....
Can you see ground 5' in front if you? Youre good.
All the crap about a second light lower is just that. 100% unnecessary on trails. Can you see better? Sure. Is it needed? No. Neither is 200L.
Know how long your light will last
Be able to change batt in dark by feel.
going to agree with muddy waters about the second light not being necessary, but not because i've tried the waist light, just because i've hiked a lot at night with just a headlamp and have never felt the need for more illumination. I do suggest you pay attention the the lumen output and use a bright headlamp. And I always have a conversation with myself about what I'll do if i wander off the trail by mistake in the dark: to plan on just camping where I am and figuring it out in the daylight, instead of wandering around in the dark and making everything worse. This has never happened to me, but I do try to be careful.
Tipi Walter
10-10-2017, 15:17
Some trails you would never want to nighthike---I can make a long list if interested. They're almost impossible in full daylight.
Thanks, everyone... I'm going SOBO from PenMar, which is quite rocky and involves a bit of scrambling for the first 2ish miles up to High Rock. That's the only place I'm concerned about.
I used to hike quite a lot at night esp in the summer. It's a good way of avoiding the summer heat in the desert. I just used a standard headlight (nothing fancy, actually think it is a Rayovac). It has a red light which is handy in case you run across some other folks. My hiking buddy once brought a huge UV light and we watched various bioluminescent plants and animals. We took our time, but I never tripped. I wouldn't hike on some trails due to lots of tree roots and that type of thing. However, right around sunset one night, my dog went after a rattlesnake before I even saw it, she did not get bit but it was pretty scary. From then on she was put on a shorter leash!
Tipi Walter
10-10-2017, 15:30
Nighthiking thru rocks in a boulder field is tough during the day much less at night. Have fun.
Here is the Panther Creek trail in Cohutta looking down the trail as it falls thru a jumble of a million rocks---Thar's a trail somewhere in there boys!
https://photos.smugmug.com/Backpack-2017-Trips-79/20-Day-Quest-For-The-Connie-Pt-2/i-5gtJHK3/0/8ecfa07a/XL/TRIP%20185%20%28175%29-XL.jpg
Many of my hikes include some time in the dark.
I found out that its contraproductive if the headlamp is too bright. Any strong beam will be reflected back into the eyes by most of the small particles in the air ahead, like, breath in the cold, night butterflies, and similar.
I have much better results using old rundown batteries giving low, but just enough light to hike. Estimated 20-30 lumen. Old batteries keep up this way a very long time.
Tipi Walter
10-10-2017, 15:40
Many of my hikes include some time in the dark.
I found out that its contraproductive if the headlamp is too bright. Any strong beam will be reflected back into the eyes by most of the small particles in the air ahead, like, breath in the cold, night butterflies, and similar.
I have much better results using old rundown batteries giving low, but just enough light to hike. Estimated 20-30 lumen. Old batteries keep up this way a very long time.
Headlamp disorientation 101. One time I was camping atop Flats Mt in TN and left my tent at night to find a sweet spot to make an end-of-trip phone call to my shuttle ride. It was cold and very foggy on top of olde Flats. I got about 100 feet down the trail and dangit could not find my tent on the way back. Why? Light reflected off the fog and blinded me. Eventually groped my way back.
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Flats Mt before nightfall.
MuddyWaters
10-10-2017, 16:21
Fog and mist droplets are excellent point. You can see this early morning in southern appalachians.
Ive traversed talus and scree with little 20L light. A few times stopping because I wasnt sure I wasnt imagining a trail. But...in the end intuition ruled. With experience you follow subtle cues hiking, dsy or night, places that look flatter than 45 degree side of mtn, small rocks instead of big, patches of sand in the sparser rocks instead just steep rocks, etc. Signs of human intervention.
My little light hits 85L when I want it. I hike with 20 because get 15 hrs of time from single AAA batt.
My experience is I can see brighter with high, but I cant see anything additional in 30-40 ft range that I dont see on low. Comparing 85 and 150 at home, in backyard, I can detect only.a subtle difference in brightness.
Slo-go'en
10-10-2017, 16:28
Moon or no moon, you need a lamp. A headlamp is the obvious choice. Having a second light at waist level is a good idea, but rarely done. You just have to go slow and watch your step. Keeping track of the trail where it isn't well defined can be a problem.
HooKooDooKu
10-10-2017, 16:47
Your overthinking it.
Just walk. Its not a big deal .
...
Can you see ground 5' in front if you? Youre good.
Maybe for a trail you either know well, or a simple to follow obvious trail. But that's not always the case.
When hiking an unfamiler trial, I've found numerous situations where being only able to see 5' leaves you in trouble.
A case in point:
The 1st time I hiked up Forney Creek Trail in GSMNP, I hiked from lower BC68 to Clingman's Dome parking lot after dark. I had a headlamp that provided clear visibility to around 12'. Everything was going great... until I came upon Forney Creek cascade just above upper BC68. What had been a simple to follow trail diverged in a multitude of paths and lots of trampled ground around the cascade. I could tell from my NatGeo map that the trail crosses the creek above upper BC68, but in the dark, I couldn't find the crossing. I even ford the creek where the most well warn path let to the base of a cascade, but couldn't find where to go next. Fortunately I ran into some campers at upper BC68. They were able to tell me that rather than looking for a crossing towards the right, I needed to stay to the left and go uphill until I could find the trail heading AWAY from the creek. Basically, the trial made a pair of U-turns crossing the creek at a higher elevation. But my NatGeo topo map didn't indicate this minor detail... a detail that was easy to spot hiking the trail in the day-time when you can see 25' to 50' around you to find where the trail continues.
On that same trip, there was a second time farther up the mountain where I nearly lost the trail again. Near the upper reaches of Forney Creek, there is about a 15' section of trail where you basically walk the rocks that form the headwaters of the creek. But the map again doesn't make this minor detail obvious. In the day time, it's easy to see where the trail exits the creek bed at the other end. But when you could only see about 12' ahead in the dark, you couldn't. In this case, the only thing that saved me was the fact that the trail clearly entered the creek and had no signs of exiting the other side. So clearly you have to head up creek. Doing so, it wasn't too hard to eventually find where the trail exits the creek. But in the dark, this isn't clearly obvious when you have limited site distance.
I've has a similar experience on Mt LeConte where the moon actually saved me. I went out to Cliff Tops to watch sunset. I stayed passed sunset and watched the stars come out. When I was ready to head back down the hill to LeConte Lodge, I only had a 'AAA' flashlight that only lit up the trail about 10' in front of me. But on top of LeConte, the trail is basically a rocky path with several short side rocky paths for water drainage. I come to one of these intersections, and with my head lamp, I can't see far enough to tell which path is the trail and which is just a drainage. However, it was a moonlit night. When I turned off the flashlight, the moon was already high enough in the sky I could see its light reflecting off the rocks. By turning the flashlight off, I was able to tell which path continued forward.
colorado_rob
10-10-2017, 16:53
Moon or no moon, you need a lamp. A headlamp is the obvious choice. Having a second light at waist level is a good idea, but rarely done. You just have to go slow and watch your step. Keeping track of the trail where it isn't well defined can be a problem.The waist-high light thing really works well, it really pops out those rocks/roots when you're cruising, but agree, it is rarely done. But, most of the folks in my little circle of ultra runners DO almost always use a waist light on ultras at night on the rougher trails. The southern AT or the same 100 miles-square of TN over and over and over and over again and again, not needed.
The AT in PA? Maybe! Try it. Or, at least if you only carry one, try lowering it sometime and see the difference.
Except for my little crew of folks, I've only see others with two lamps a few times.
cmoulder
10-10-2017, 17:24
I don't night hike much at all but those times I've done it I find that the headlamp alone works fine.
Last fall I was coming down Pharaoh Mountain toward Pharaoh lake (Adirondacks), which is a very rough and steep bit. (I pissed away the last half hour of twilight trying to find the correct trail down!) I was glad to have the headlamp because I had to look around a lot for hand- and foot-holds and a light at waist level would have been of little use. My dog had no problem with no headlight at all. Down on flatter trail by the lake I walked for about another hour with no problems despite the fact that it was rough in places. The reflective blue trail markers made it impossible to get lost.
Kaptainkriz
10-10-2017, 18:27
Just go slowly and be sure of your footing One headlamp is enough. That section of trail is unusually rocky for the area. At around 2.4 miles south of PenMar, the trail proceeds steeply up a very rocky section for about 0.8 miles. I've done portions of MD and WV in the dark and once I got used to it, had no issues. I was more creeped out by the night sounds and startling piles of deer.
Some photos of PenMar to Raven Rock when I did that section here: https://goo.gl/photos/Eh82YCBQ49Fy5bW36
and a youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0tWU3gVnfg
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0tWU3gVnfg)Raven Rock to PoGo photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/unM35CMkagcs9m1u9
(https://goo.gl/photos/unM35CMkagcs9m1u9)
Thanks, everyone... I'm going SOBO from PenMar, which is quite rocky and involves a bit of scrambling for the first 2ish miles up to High Rock. That's the only place I'm concerned about.
saltysack
10-10-2017, 19:56
I’ve never had an issue night hiking with a GOOD headlight.....I’ll take a few oz penalty for the 300lm zebra light single AA....honestly I can’t remember a trip that didn’t involve at least a few hours of night hiking....I’ve thought about trying the waist light set up but haven’t yet. Few years back on the JMT a did a good bit of night hiking to make up for an unplanned zero day. I left Muir hut as it was getting dark and had another 10 miles to go...this section is a little tough to follow....i was glad to have a bright light when needed! I actually rather enjoy night hiking....I’ve never seen stars as amazing as out west during a cool September night....nothing better...
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MuddyWaters
10-10-2017, 20:15
I’ve never had an issue night hiking with a GOOD headlight.....I’ll take a few oz penalty for the 300lm zebra light single AA....honestly I can’t remember a trip that didn’t involve at least a few hours of night hiking....I’ve thought about trying the waist light set up but haven’t yet. Few years back on the JMT a did a good bit of night hiking to make up for an unplanned zero day. I left Muir hut as it was getting dark and had another 10 miles to go...this section is a little tough to follow....i was glad to have a bright light when needed! I actually rather enjoy night hiking....I’ve never seen stars as amazing as out west during a cool September night....nothing better...
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That area 1/2 -3/4 mile south of Muir hut would be confuzzling at night. A well known ultra runner had a guide for fkt there so they wouldnt lose time going thru at night.
Thanks, everyone... I'm going SOBO from PenMar, which is quite rocky and involves a bit of scrambling for the first 2ish miles up to High Rock. That's the only place I'm concerned about.
I have done this stretch under headlamp many times as part of my annual 4 state challenge yoyos. The only caution that I will give you is pay careful attention to the trail up to high rock. There are blazes very frequently but the trail zigs and zags a few times. Once on top it is a cake walk. I have not need nothing other than a single head lamp.
saltysack
10-10-2017, 20:59
That area 1/2 -3/4 mile south of Muir hut would be confuzzling at night. A well known ultra runner had a guide for fkt there so they wouldnt lose time going thru at night.
I got off trail several times in that area, was glad to have the guthooks app...Walked up on a big buck not far past it....https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20171011/47b3abb9ab481e63f61a923537865532.jpg
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Tipi Walter
10-10-2017, 21:11
Thanks saltysack for the pic. Reminds of the times I nighthiked a terrible trail in Pisgah called 268A on Upper Creek south of Grandfather Mt. It was tough at night for the blowdowns and the section we called heartbreak hill. Those were the days when we all carried mini mag flashlights and drooled down them profusely. Here's my buddy Johnny B arriving in camp on Upper Creek at night and setting up his tent, circa 1985. Note the drooling.
One time we did a midnight backpack into the place on snow and there were 3 of us with just two flashlights so we sandwiched our friend in the middle.
https://photos.smugmug.com/BooneYears/Pisgah-Upper-Creek/i-MGTmz6S/0/9edf54a8/L/Johnny%20B%20gets%20to%20Pisgah%20Camp%20at%20nigh t%20and%20sets%20up%20the%20tent-L.jpg
chknfngrs
10-12-2017, 07:54
I just did that section and the rocks are no joke. Granted I went through at 11am.... I have found great success with a hand held light is best for depth perception. I actually used a red tail light for biking and felt like it beat my white as day headlamp. Less tripping.
clusterone
10-12-2017, 12:47
Some trails you would never want to nighthike---I can make a long list if interested. They're almost impossible in full daylight.
I'll bite Tipi... sounds like my favorite type of trails?
clusterone
10-12-2017, 12:49
Some trails you would never want to nighthike---I can make a long list if interested. They're almost impossible in full daylight.. ...the almost impossible in the daylight part is what spurred my interest. Need some new places to check out. Thx
I'll bite Tipi... sounds like my favorite type of trails?
NJdreamer
10-12-2017, 13:26
I have backpacked at night 3 times in past 6 months, including 6 miles last week, and enjoy it. I "do" the waist thing, using a solar pillow light at the waist, and supplement with a traditional headlamp if rocky for a few minutes at a time. I will note that one time I did not intend to night hike, just kept procrastinating where to camp, and ended up cowboy camping on boulders until sunrise. I could not determine where the trail went, and decided it was my best option (over falling off the cliff, taking a wrong turn, etc.). That was not so much fun. Since then I have tried to be more careful and only night hike when the terrain is most likely to be easy.
Tipi Walter
10-12-2017, 14:32
. ...the almost impossible in the daylight part is what spurred my interest. Need some new places to check out. Thx
I'll bite Tipi... sounds like my favorite type of trails?
Two trails for hardcore Nighthikers: Brush Mt trail in Citico wilderness, up or down. Upper Slickrock Creek #42 aka Nutbuster trail from Big Fat trail jct up to Naked Ground Gap.
MtDoraDave
10-12-2017, 22:15
To see the trail, not many lumens are needed. To identify the critters 40 feet away, more lumens ARE needed.
I couldn't make out anything but the approximate size and the white reflective eyes of the critters I encountered while night hiking once while using a 100 lumen Energizer.
.
I now use a headlight that has a 200 lumen mode, though the low power mode is fine 99% of the time and is better for battery life.
.
YMMV, HYOH, etc... but I'm "packing my fears" with ample lumens.
nsherry61
10-13-2017, 12:50
. . . I now use a headlight that has a 200 lumen mode, ... but I'm "packing my fears" with ample lumens.
For trail hiking, I rarely use over 40 or 50 lumens (I most often night hike without any light), so I also rarely carry anything over 100 lumens or so unless I'm planning on being off trail at night.
That being said, it's really fun hunting for my dog in the woods behind our house with my 1000+ lumens of headlight off my mountain bike. You definitely see a lot more!
chknfngrs
10-13-2017, 15:31
Nice Lint reference
clusterone
10-18-2017, 12:58
Brush Mt trail in Citico wilderness... heck this is easy enough to get off trail with plenty of light!
Tipi Walter
10-18-2017, 13:32
Brush Mt trail in Citico wilderness... heck this is easy enough to get off trail with plenty of light!
Yes, a great trail to nighthike.
https://photos.smugmug.com/Backpack-2017-Trips-79/Quest-For-Brush-Mountain/i-334dk8g/0/ef574f51/XL/P1000340-XL.jpg
Welcome to Brush Mt!!
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Brush is easy at night.
jjozgrunt
10-18-2017, 16:44
I only ever use a headlamp at 80 lumens, my petzl is programmable. I had to do a lot of my training for the AT at night as it's a million degrees and 99.9% humidity here during the 6 months before a March start. Plus I usually start when I wake in the morning, so often walking in the dark. If you plan to walk in the dark, then like anything else practice it.