I often run at night. In a urban setting or area where exterior electric illumination is going to screw w/ your night vision anyway, then use a normal headlamp or flashlight.

For 'off grid' like trail running, hiking and such, were you need illumination for personal use only and there is little or no external lighting I use a green flashlight. The easiest way is to use a version of the military's angled GI light or a step up to the Sidewinder angled LED. There are also others you can look for.

Green will not disrupt your night vision and give you a really good, though, not very far lighting. Even will running on good trail. Bushwhacking, your on your own. I have also started to use my new Tikka headlamp that has a larger red LED than the e+lite as a secondary light. Red also doesn't screw with your vision.

There is only one scenario where I would want to travel at night in a survival situation: in the desert on relatively level or only gently undulating terrain.

Otherwise, I don't see the point, unless I would be intending on making a bad situation worse. A rock rolls under your foot, you don't notice that 6" step-down or the little erosion gully, and you sprain/break your ankle or leg. Turn to speak to someone with you and walk off even a 3' cliff. If a bear was stalking you, would you know? Do you even know if you're going in the right direction?

How does getting injured, getting more tired, more stressed, possibly colder, possibly more dehydrated, or an injury help the situation?

As we've all armchair-quarterbacked, JUST STOP MOVING, for pete's sake!

And then there's possible searchers... someone in a search plane that is low on fuel thinks he saw you or your tracks just before sunset. The searchers go back at dawn and if you had been there, you're gone now. Somewhere. If you've managed to travel one mile per hour for ten hours, they've got an additional 80 miles of area to search.

Just find/build some shelter and build a fire. If nothing else, you'll be warmer, and also be able to see the oncoming bears, wolves, and zombies.

Sue

Zombies! Yoiks!

A lot of good information here. Thanks everyone.

Yeah, if you're not going to get out in an hour or two, then for sure bed down for the night while there's still light. That one was brought home to me in a big way when I kept going until after dark and then bedded down. In the morning I woke only to find that I had spent the night in poison oak. I laugh at myself now but at the time it was sheer misery, misery that lasted long after I had finally gotten out of the situation.

However, if you know where you are and you're on a good trail, I can see walking out if you know you can get out in an hour or two. Bushwhacking at night? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Steep, slanty trails at night? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

A trick that I haven't seen mentioned is using moonlight. Whenever I'm going to go overnight or on a long day hike, I visit the US Naval Observatory and get sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset information (see example below). I know how many hours of light there are. I match that against the mileage I want to cover for the day and how fast I hike. I get a pretty good idea of how early I need to be on the trail, and how much light I'll have left to set up camp when I get to my destination.

With the moonrise/set and phase information, I know whether or not I'll have moonlight by which I can explore or what have you. It's just a good idea to know what your resources are before you head out, and trust me, light is a resource.

HJ


U.S. Naval Observatory
Astronomical Applications Department

Sun and Moon Data for One Day
The following information is provided for Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California (longitude W118.4, latitude N34.1):

Sunday
11 July 2010 Pacific Daylight Time

SUN
Begin civil twilight 5:22 a.m.
Sunrise 5:51 a.m.
Sun transit 12:59 p.m.
Sunset 8:07 p.m.
End civil twilight 8:36 p.m.

MOON
Moonset 7:24 p.m. on preceding day
Moonrise 5:38 a.m.
Moon transit 12:59 p.m.
Moonset 8:14 p.m.
Moonrise 6:51 a.m. on following day

New Moon on 11 July 2010 at 12:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

If you are truly lost or disoriented at night staying in one spot and waiting for rescue makes sense. But it is pretty rare for anyone having a reasonable level of field experience to be entirely disoriented and unaware of the general lay of the land even in conditions of near total darkness.

I've never been in conditions where I simply had to completely stop. Even in complete darkness, in a cave, it is possible to keep moving very slowly and remain both oriented and safe.

The two skills you need are: a practiced sensitivity and willingness to take your time and use all your senses to develop a picture of what is around you; patience and a willingness to advance in stop-sense-move cycle.

In no-light conditions where risks are high it might take a while to get a feel for your surroundings. And you move by crawling a meter or two at a time before stopping and repeating the cycle. Full-moon, clear conditions, and flat ground with no danger and you move at a trot. Stopping just once in a while to listen and look.

The biggest obstacle to this sort of thing is the unwillingness of people to stop, calm down, and use all their senses. Training can start by taking people out into the woods. Having them lay down and create an inventory of things they sense. A very slight breeze carried the scent of flowers. And when the wind shifted a bit we could smell pine resin.

Staring up at the sky we could see the dark outline of tree branches against the sky and tell the tree was not a pine.

After a while we heard the slight sound of water, an armadillo rooting around in the leaf litter was quite loud. Over time it is easy to start to paint a picture of the landscape around us for a considerable distance.

Hmm. I'm a little skeptical about the cave thing, but I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think the biggest barrier to night time nav is people's perception of how difficult it's going to be. I got kind of used to it in the army. My wife thinks I'm nuts.

HJ