Iconic vistas, hikes, and attractions like Glacier Point in Yosemite or the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia offer transporting experiences that can connect you to the Earth and remind you of your place in the world. That is, until a gaggle of screaming teenagers flouting social distancing guidelines disrupts your chi.
In true Millennial fashion, I’ve discovered a hack: show up in the middle of the night. Like standing in an empty stadium, there’s something special about spending time alone in the quiet stillness of America’s greatest natural theaters. Dramatic landscapes take on new meaning as they stand in relief with the infinite resplendence of the cosmos. Sometimes, I find myself wondering why these places are so desolate at night. This is when they’re at their best.
But then I remember: most people sleep at night and aren’t obsessed with astrophotography. But on the off chance you’d like to hike several miles in the dark to gaze into the void, please read on for some advice about how to plan and execute a night hike to appreciate the sky.
1. Prepare For Disappointment
The reason most people enjoy beautiful vistas during the day is that you can’t see them as well at night. Internalize this.
Images of the Milky Way rising over your favorite national park can be beautiful and awe-inspiring, however you’ll quickly learn that your puny pupils and underpowered retinas are no match for a 24mm f/1.4 lens, a 240 second exposure time, and several hours in front of a computer. Your biology is simply not equipped to take in this kind of grandeur. At best, your eyes are suited for traversing moonlit plains, or at worst triggering the abject terror of noticing gleaming eyes in the forest. Often, at the end of a multi-mile hike, the only indication you’ve reached your destination is the sudden and uncomfortable sensation of being overexposed. Your first thought upon summiting may be that you could have just looked at the Milky Way from your campsite. You’d be right (but only if you ignore the next point).
2. Practice Your Hike in the Daytime
Landmarks evaporate, forks in the trail become elusive, and you may walk right past that iconic vista and never know it. Practicing your hike in the daytime may seem like a waste of time, but it provides valuable safety information when hiking far-flung trails in the dead of night. Make special note of landmarks within 2-3 feet of the trail; your headlamp won’t shine as far as you think, and you’ll never see the giant boulder 100 feet off the trail that guides most daytime visitors.
What’s more, practicing your hike in daytime will give you the context to appreciate the views you encounter. Your mind will remember the vistas and fill in the blanks, allowing you to genuinely appreciate what a lowly speck you are in the face of the immensity of creation.
3. Be Afraid of the Dark
The desert has snakes and scorpions. The forest has bears and coyotes. Even the California coast has mountain lions. They all see better in the dark than you.
Familiarize yourself with the terrible creepy-crawlies and teeth-gnashers that come out at night in the area you plan to hike. Also familiarize yourself with how to deal with such threats and remember: if you do this long enough, you will eventually stumble upon a nocturnal creature with deadly potential. We learned this the hard way in Sequoia National Park during a surprise 1:00 AM encounter with a black bear less than ten feet distant.
Also remember that most glowing green eyes are deer. Until they aren’t.
4. Don’t Fall off a Cliff
Mountains are lousy with cliffs, and you can easily approach the edge of one at night without knowing it. Invest in a bright, high-quality headlamp, and make sure to use fresh batteries before every hike. Bring spares with you. The best headlamps are very bright but burn through batteries quickly. The more visibility you have on the trail, the better.
Bring a walking stick or hiking pole and watch your step. This is great advice on any hike, but at night it can be especially helpful to have this extra balance and support. Thankfully, night hiking offers fewer visual distractions while on the trail, so there isn’t much to focus on other than your footing.
5. Plan Your Hike on Google Earth
This applies more to astrophotographers than to hikers, but I find Google Earth one of the most helpful ways to plan hikes and images. I usually turn on Street View and scan the map for places where users post their own 360-degree images (blue dots). Most people don’t do that sort of thing in the middle of the woods, which means there is usually something interesting to see in such locations. In most cases, the more blue dots, the better the view.
However, not all vistas make good photos. You need to know a thing or two about the sky before you hit the trail.
6. Know the Moon Phase and Location of the Milky Way
The trouble with Earth is that it won’t stay still: it spins like a top faster than the speed of sound and travels 584 million miles a year in its orbit around the sun. Meanwhile, the Moon revolves us once a month. As a result, the same vista will look radically different depending on the time of night, time of year, and time of month. For astrophotographers, this means planning images and hikes based on a knowledge of the sky on the night in question, and of the direction the vista faces. The Milky Way may not get into the right position until 3AM, meaning the hike needs to start at 1AM… so have some coffee or plan your hike for a few months down the line.
For non-photographers, you’ll never see the Milky Way if there’s a Full Moon, no matter where you are; it brightens the sky by a factor of 100-1,000 (depending on how close to the Moon you look), doing the same job as city lights. In fact, any Moon at all will significantly detract from your view of the stars and Milky Way (though it will dramatically illuminate the landscape, which is beautiful in its own right), and you should plan accordingly. Reaching your destination just before moonset or moonrise is a great way to enjoy the best of both worlds.
Apps like Stellarium (Apple) and Mobile Observatory (Android) are great for learning where celestial objects will be, and PhotoPills’ Augmented Reality feature is well worth the cost for photographers who want to plan Milky Way shots onsite. Planning ahead can dramatically increase your bang-for-buck.
7. Check the Weather
No shit.
8. Bring Things You’d Bring on a Day Hike
Talking apes need things like food and water, even at night. They also need clothes and options for layers. And things like a first aid kit and Boy Scout Manual and a knife or whatever.
9. Tips from Katie
Remember, not everyone in your party will be as into this as you are. Shockingly, the kinetic excitement of long-exposure astrophotography may not be enough to keep your friends warm and awake through the evening, and they may need additional creature comforts:
- Extra blankets
- iPad with a Kindle for reading
- Caffeinated beverages
- Gloves, hats, parkas, leggings, neck warmers, scarves, Snuggie
- Hand warmers
- Phone
- Healthy skepticism of the phrase “just one more exposure”
Well that’s about it. Don’t die out there, and if you see me and Katie on the trail please don’t approach us… we’re out there to get away from everyone, including you.