night hiking is nothing but fun. some of my best adventures have been while night hiking. check them out:
the first one is from my attempted winter thru-hike of 2000. this also happened to be my longest day at just under 26 miles.
and, this is from a twenty-mile night hike that my good friend, shoeless jon, and i did. quite an adventure indeed.
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=11947
grizzly adam
Hiking at night is one thing I enjoy. I’ve seen the glow worms, the eye’s of deer and lit up.
Have you ever seen diamonds sparkling on the ground only to find out that they are the eyes of spiders. Too cool.
Buster
I didn’t plan on night hiking, but ended up doing it a couple of times because I was meeting a ride at a road crossing that was miles away. It was scary, but interesting. I only had a photon and pointed it toward the trail ahead. It was tough to see blazes and I was not always sure of the trail. I was less worried about animals than of getting lost in the dark. The hardest was rocky trail where you’re not sure which way to go and it’s too dark to find blazes. Rain made it even more interesting. When I stumbled to the road crossing, I must have been a sight!
oldkathy
We recently returned from a 70 mile backpacking trip through the backcountry of Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico, in the foothills of the Rockies. A ranger there warned us against night hiking, he said that mountain lions are known to stalk solo night hikers. He said if you must go somewhere at night go in a group of at least 2-3 people. We did not see any lions. In the east I would have never considered this to be an issue.
RockyTrail
When I was a boy, I lived in the Catskills, with my maiden aunt, who we lived with after my momma and grandpa passed on. We had a roof made of grass that extended off the side of a hill onto our house where the house was built. An old goat would sometimes get up there, and my aunt used to get distressed about what the goat was doing up there, and she would chase her off with a broom. We had lost a goat to who knows what predator, some said cougar, but others scoffed, 'cause we all know that the last cougars had been seen. Smart money was on a wild dog. Still, my aunt got protective of that one last remaining goat, sure she would do herself in if allowed to remain on the roof. She would scurry up there and chase her off. It was during one of these “expeditions” as she called them, in late summer that my aunt herself fell off the roof. It was at 7 at night, and she lay there unresponsive and in a gathering pool dark dark blood. I dragged her to near the bed as best I could at nine, but still no response. I began to get scared, remembering all that had happened to us before, and I told my brother, who was seven to stay with her and say prayers. I should have washed away the scent of that blood. But twilight was falling, and I took the old birdshot gun and a lantern and went for doc, who wasn’t really a doc at all, but he was an old (everyone’s old to a boy of nine. He was probably in his 40s) indian scout who had served his time was rewarded with a soldiers land grant (probably with a little help from a greatful sergeant some say). In all the conflict he had seen, something had stayed with him of staunching wounds and easing pain, and people would go to him, since any real doc was a good bit further away in the next town. The only problem was that the way to his house ran under some caves that I had to whistle past, even in the daylight. That night was windy, with just a sliver of moon, and it wasn’t too long before my lantern was out. My horse stumbled, and shied back at every turn, like he smelt something, but we were committed. Still, riding did no good after a stumble, and I was walking him along, not knowing whether I had made him lame, or whether my aunt was still in the land of the living. The very night seemed like the dead were walking, walking and possibly stalking. I felt eyes on the back of my neck, and I wanted to gallop away, but there was nothing to be done with the lame steed. Walking that good horse, Doxology, probably saved my life though. Just a little ways from Injun Joe’s shed, we called him that because some wise acre in the army had read Twain, and thought it would be fun to give him the name. His real name being something like Choectawneewa, everyone just called him Joe in one form or another. But I was just a ways from his door, having said about 30 now I lay me down to sleeps and every other prayer I could think of when I heard a scream. It was a scream like a woman in childbirth, and I knew enough of the old settlers tales to know that there weren’t no woman coming down on my head. It landed square on Doxology’s back, the horse bucked and kicked madly; I struggled to get the shot gun aimed, had a finger on the trigger, but then I saw it coming down on me, like a wet blanket. The gun barrel went up, I went down, and as I turned my head to the side, smelling its breath, bits of rotting meet in its teeth, I turned my head to the side, the gun going off into or near its its lower jaw, my ear feeling rather than hearing the great percussive blast. Dox was bucking and kicking from behind like a born bronc. The great cat was gone, just like it came. Joe came to see what the commotion was. He couldn’t believe there was a cat as big as I said on his side of the mountain. Yet Doxology’s muscle was flayed bare where the cat had tried to hold its balance, wiht one swipe beside the saddle, and I thought how it would have felt had it been my small back instead. But the bigger concern was my Aunt, being held in vigil by Sam my smaller brother. Joe came, and as he nursed her back, there was something in his look at her. The world was still against such things, but they took up with each other, and soon were married. Joe always called me his cougar boy, part laughingly, for that cat left no tracks, save for a flay on the horses back. And no hunting party ever found it. They are all gone now. But sometimes late at night, I’ll hear an inhuman howl rising up low, so that it could be the wind. But the thing is, and it is odd, I hear it with my bad ear, the one damaged by the gun.
Night hiking? No. Never again. I stay at home, watch the stars, and sometimes think of Doxology.
Old Man on the Mountain