After a stress-filled summer day, night hiking could be a reward to cool off and enjoy the wonderful scenery of the night. It can be a whole lot of fun especially when one is going as a group. Night hiking also comes with the advantage of making you familiar with a particular terrain. This is usually because your full senses become sensitive and alert at this time.
However, whether you want an adventurous night hike or not depends on your level of preparation. There comes a limit with night hikes, and you do need to stay aware before you lace your boots and get started. For more information, you can also check out this site for some additional tips and tricks about hiking at night.
Why Hike At Night: The Major Benefits
- Connect with nature: If you love nature and seeing moonlights, then night hiking will provide you a better view. It furthers amplifies your senses to observe beautiful landscapes, see the awesome stars and nocturnal animals.
- Relief from Heat: Night hiking is best observed during summer periods as it helps relief from day time heat and improves your hydration.
- Quiet trails: Getting complete tranquility during hiking trails is something you don’t get during the day time, but night hiking provides the opportunity to get quiet walking moments. It makes you reflect on some matters and you get better at being creative with frequent night walks.
Basic Essentials to Take For a Night Hike
The essentials you take with you for a night hike depends on whether you are hiking alone or with someone. For a trouble-free hike, you will need to pack some items. Many of these items revolve around the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and protection.
- Food: Night hiking is an energy-consuming activity where you tend to burn off calories faster than you can imagine. With that, you need to take high nourishing foods for your night hikes. In the case, you prefer something hot for the cold night you may pick up your camp stove and fuel (optional)
- Tent: In most cases, you might get tired and need to rest in for the night. In other cases, it could start rain or get extremely cold and then decide to take a nap. While you might be considering taking a nap under the stars, I don’t think it would be a good option because you need protection from insects and weather elements. A good camping tent should be taken along for this purpose.
- Clothing: Depending on the weather, you need to take protective clothing. Clothing is also important to keep away insect bites. You could opt for layers that could help keep you warm during cold nights. The importance of extra socks, hats and gloves cannot be underemphasized.
- Water: Hiking is a long stride, and you could get dehydrated with time so you need an available source of water to stay hydrated. You may also need water for washing up and cases of emergencies with other hikers. Therefore, before you plan your next night hike, you should take water containers to pack water along. However, if you are sure of getting water from a river or lake along your terrain, you could opt for a water purifier. Having a water purifier is a better option as it reduces your baggage load for hikes.
- Map/ Guide: Getting familiar is always important for night hikes. That is why there is more reason you need to draw out a map or Guide. You don’t want to get lost out there, especially if you are going alone.
- Emergency kits: There calls for the need to be paranoid about a night hike, but you need to take some essentials items for night hikes. Such includes a fully charged cell phone, although you cannot count on getting network. Packing Emergency Kit may involve taking a fire signal to alert other hikers of potential danger.
Tips for an Adventurous Night Hiking
- Move with a Group:Two is better than one. You could choose to move out with a group of friends or your immediate family, but don’t go solo most of the time. Going on night hikes entail you move in groups as this allows you to watch out for each other and alert one another when danger is in sight.
- Choose a familiar trail: This is quite vital, especially if you are a beginner with night hiking. Choosing a familiar trail reduces the chances of getting lost and makes the whole not laborious. That’s why you have to set your plans in motion before you head out. Head out before the full night to aware of your surroundings.
- Map your Route: Although you should take a familiar route anytime, you are going for a night hike. There is still the need to map a trail of the site for your night walk on a piece of paper. This site is what you concentrate on or keep to when going for such a night hike. This is important as night hiking is not the right time to risk a last-minute change of direction. You might fall into danger in unknown territory or even get lost.
- Keep your Hiking Items organized: Whatever essentials you will be packing in your rucksack or backpack, do ensure they are well organized. You should know where each item is placed at each point in time. Remember, it’s a low light adventure, and you don’t want to rampage your backpack for an essential item.
- Go with the right light source: Being aware and more observant of your terrain during night hikes require you taking the right light source. For the best experience, remember to take a headlamp and a few extra batteries. In the best case going on night hikes with a headlamp that has a red light mode feature which will help preserve your night vision.
Conclusion
Night hiking comes with a whole lot of benefits, and making the most of it requires you to observe some rituals. These rituals include organizing essentials and observing other tips given in this article. This article provides you with the basics to stay safe and protected on your adventurous night hikes.
This article was shared by our friends at ComfortWorkBoots.com
