If you haven’t tried it yet, hiking at night offers sensations and feelings you cannot encounter during the day. Although starting to walk around 2:00 am is not easy I assure you it is worth it, especially during summer. It’s time for a sunset challenge!
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The night: the best moment for a summer hike
Have you ever thought that one day you would hike during the night? First of all: it is cooler if not cold. Temperature can drop down to 5-10°C in summer. The perception of time given by the Sun disappears and you enter in a timeless dimension surrounded by infinity. Our eyes cannot see further than a few meters and barely guess the shape of the mountains and at the same time we perceive photons coming from stars light-years away. When you are up there, looking at the stars in the middle of the night, you realise at this specific moment the preciousness of our world and how unique this one is billions of billions of … kilometers around.
When dawn approaches with its intense brown/orange shades, there is a high probability to see many Ibex and young ones running up the mountains while other hikers are still asleep in their tents. Our goal: getting to the view point before the sun rises, sit somewhere and wait for the show to begin once more for the last 4,6 billion years. Is there a better way to wait than a cup of tea with croissants? When the Sun rises from the horizon you realize how fast the Earth rotates around its axle, exactly at 1670 km/h. Several minutes later the show is over and the day begins: only a handful of people saw some of the wonders offered by the night slowly giving room to the day. After a short nap we start our way down while masses of hikers walk in our direction under a burning Sun.
Rate and contact
Contact
Each of my guided hike is personalised. Feel free to contact me below:
Insurance
For €1,70/day, it’s highly recommended to subscribe a personal accident insurance as we evolve in a potentially dangerous environment.
Description
Night Hike: Fullmoon and Starlights
Depending of your staying, two kinds of sunset challenge are possible.
- During the fullmoon week to test our ability to see at night. The reflection of the sunlight allows us to walk without headlamp on smooth trails. Our eyes get use to the darkness and after an hour we almost see like cats. The sensation is hard to explain as we experience something we barely use this capacity. Trust yourself and try you won’t be disappointed!
. - Moonless night offers a different show. As soon as we are far enough from any light pollution we see a portion of the MilkyWay and far more stars. The mesmerizing beauty of our Universe forces us to stop and admire the different constellations created by the imagination of our ancestors. Who knows, we might see some shooting stars too!
With a pair of binoculars we will spy around the mountaineers on the glaciers starting their journey to a peak like us!
Hiking by night opens to a higher state of consciousness
Here is something marvelous we often forget in our daily life: We are all made of stardust. Over billions of years the huge gravity taking place within a star combines light atoms together to create bigger ones. The fusion reaction liberates energy in protons, photons and radiations. At some point, the atoms within the star are to big to combine with each other. At this specific moment two things can happen depending the start mass:
- Either the star exploses in a supernova: One of space brightest event responsible of the creation of the heaviest atoms. All its atoms are brutally spread across our Universe and the huge gravity of its heart falling on itself gives birth to a neutron star or a black hole.
- Either the star expulses its outer layers to create a planetary nebula while its heart gets smaller and smaller to become a white dwarf for almost eternity.
Hiking by night helps us to remind ourselves where we come from and how magical our reality is when we look further than the tip of our nose.
Equipment
What you should take for this night hike
For your own comfort, please follow these recommendations to fully enjoy our guided night hike in Mont-Blanc area.
Clothing
- Headlamp (charged)
- Hat
- Textile collar like BUFF©
- Windproof / Rainproof jacket
- Fleece jumper
- Technical or merino wool base layer cotton forbidden
- Stretch long pants or with zip to turn them into shorts
- Hiking socks
- Anti-chafing cream NOK (available at the drug store)
- Real hiking shoes with a good sole
- Hiking poles (highly recommended)
Backpack
- Small Backpack (15L minimum)
- 2 litres of water/person (1l minimum)
- Cereal bars and/or dried fruits
- Polarised sunglasses
- Sunscreen
- Cash (€) for a beverage in a refuge