Hiking at Night

This past Sunday morning at 1:30 am my alarm clock sounded.  It was time to get up and head over to Table Rock for a hike in the dark.

By 3 am the ranger was leading our group of 16 up the Table Rock trail so that we could witness the sunrise from on top of the mountain.  Hiking at night was a really interesting experience.  Your senses are much different at night without having your sight to distract your brain.

This is a trail I have hiked nearly a dozen times and I feel very familiar with the route, but at night you can only see the your next two steps and nothing around you.  The boulders beside you look like giant rock cliffs in the dark.  It was like being on an entirely new trail.   I was near the front of our line and several times I turned around to see a line of headlights coming toward me.

Rain had threatened to cancel our hike but thankfully the rain had moved away before we started and the forecast only called for a 20% chance of rain.  It was cloudy and at our altitude it was like walking through fog.

There were a few in the group that were particularly chatty but they stayed near the back of the line and didn't bother me.  During breaks I would get to listen to their conversations and I would wonder how someone could be so chatty at 4:30am.  When we reached Governor's Rock we sat down and took a break.  After a minute everyone had clicked off their flashlights and the talking stopped.  The 17 of us sat on the bald rock face looking into the darkness and listening to the silence.  This moment would become my favorite moment of the entire trip.

At around five in the morning we reached the three mile mark of the hike and it started to rain.  Many people stopped and put on rain gear but I just stood and got wet since I didn't bring that stuff.   Prior to the rain it was very humid and I was sweating a lot on the uphill climb.  The soaking rain actually felt good and I didn't mind being wet.

We crested the summit and continued our hike to the overlook.  Below is a picture of our hike from my GPS.  We were on the pink trail.

A few minutes after we sat down on the edge of the mountain the rain stopped.  It was 6:15am and sunrise was at 7:16.  We were hoping the clouds would start to move out to allow us what we had hoped would be an amazing view.   As I sat there, I was getting colder and colder.  The wind was blowing through the valley and hitting against my wet clothes.  I brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs.  Curled into this ball I attempted to stop the wind from hitting most of my body.  It helped keep the wind off of my core and I stayed in this position for the next fifteen minutes.

Still shivering, I decided to see how wet my pullover got during the rain.  I dug it out of my bag and found it to be mostly dry.  I decided to strip off my wet shirt in exchange for the pullover in an attempt to remove the cold water from my body.  That helped a lot and a few minutes later I was more comfortable.

The sky begins to turn lighter about 30-40 minutes prior to the sunrise and I saw nothing but clouds in front of me.   In this photo below I should see another mountain (Stool mountain} and the cliffs that lead to Caesar's Head.

At 7:16, the official sunrise time, it began to rain again.  Several of the group had already turned back but now the rest of us decided it was time to go.  We had stayed until sunrise on top of the mountain.

The light rain continued for my ninety minutes down to the base but I never got as cold as I was when sitting on top.  I heard someone ask the ranger how this rated on his sunrise hikes over the years and he answered without hesitation, "At the bottom".  

We didn't get to see the sun come up and we got soaked in rain but this was still an awesome hike in the night.  Hiking while surrounded by total darkness is not something I have done before and it was worth getting out of bed for.

I'll also be forever grateful for those quiet five minutes looking into the darkness with sixteen strangers.