I'd appreciate your thoughts about hiking through the backcountry when it is extremely dark; pitch dark.

With or without GPS.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

Night hiking is a tricky business.

In my part of the world, wildlife use the same corridors and trails at night. Your chances of meeting a bear or large ungulate increase, and it's hard to have the same situational awareness as in daylight.

Off trail work raises the injury potential. It's surprisingly easy to run a branch into your eye or step into a hidden hole.

I would note that the excellent LED lights we have now help to mitigate these hazards to some degree. A good headlamp with a blowtorch handheld would be the combination I'd choose. Note that large animals don't necessarily run from bright light though. Some would argue that a light that preserves your night vision might be a better choice (at least when there is some ambient light out there).

My 2c.

P.S., Don't expect to make nearly the miles during a night hike that you would make during the day in the same terrain.

You certainly would need to allow your night vision to develop and then protect it.
This is from the American Optometric Association.
http://www.aoa.org/optometrists/tools-an...nd-night-vision

The only place I would travel at night is the dessert.that would only be in a survival situation to avoid the heat and sun.The only people I know that navigate at night are military running night operations or in an E&E situation.When running night ops the military has night vision goggles.If I would hike at night it would be on a clear star filled sky with a full moon.
If you do night hike get a CAMMENGA Tritium compass.I have one and recommend it highly.yes I have done night hikes and also night patrols (in training) in the military.

BOATMAN
John

Unless you are in a position where you need to travel at night--desert or an E&E situation--your body generally wants to sleep when it's dark. Don't fight it. As a counterpoint, I have worked evenings and midnights for 32 years...in the woods. The "kids" I FTO'd always got an initial lesson of: let's sit for five minutes, with the lights out, and THEN go to work. I have a Streamlight Stylus (no affiliation) that I carry for when I REALLY can't see where I'm going; I also have a much brighter light, for when I need to blind everyone. Working in the dark has allowed me to work much more efficiently, than trying to work with any kind of light on.
For recreational hiking, wait for some moonlight, or plan to move much more slowly in starlight. I have had some wonderful times eating "lunch" in the middle of the night, overlooking the countryside...

And totally off-topic: I was home last week: but not back on a Cracker Pony in a Cypress forest. Makes me wonder why I put up with last winter here, instead of FTL...

There's two techniques I know of thats good for lowlight land navigation. The first involves walking to, and along, large terrain features. You can miss a pass, but it's hard to miss a valley.

The second is a two person technique for using a back bearing and flaslights. Say that you want to navigate across the alluvial fan on a bearing of 320 deg. One person stays put and the second hikes 50-100 yards out. The second then turns around and moves, typically CCW, until the first person is 40 deg (320-180=40) from them. The first person then comes up to join the second. If you account for the tendency to veer off toward your dominate side, this can be fairly accurate.

I am not sure I would recommend hiking in the desert at night, at least not the Lower Sonoran. It is a very prickly landscape, and during a large part of the year,rattlesnakes are more active at night. Caution is advised.

But I rather enjoy hiking at night, and during SAR operations, night work is extremely common. I prefer a moderately powered headlamp which is readily handheld, along with a convenient bright one. I prefer to use ambient light as much as possible. In a full moon, you really don't need your headlamp much at all, especially if you are following a ridge crest.

I find that your feet can sense trail tread quite well, and will often give you the first indication that you have strayed.Like any other activity, more experience will lead to greater proficiency.

As for hiking in desserts, I have never tried that,but I would imagine that pumpkin pie would be rather slippery,especially with vanilla ice cream. Chocolate would be very hard to distinguish, but I would be willing to try.....

I would not attempt it unless it was absolutely necessary.

I have gotten turned around in the woods on my my way to my deer stand on my brothers farm...an area I have hunted and logged for years and know like the back of my hand.

Even with a light, you might not fall in a hole, but you cannot get the big picture to navigate. Although it's rarely totally dark, even in the bottomlands, things look different at night, with or without a light.

Extremely hard to do solo, almost as hard with a partner. Pace count, terrain association and known landmarks work at night, as far as you can see them. Going is slow, especially if you are trying to hit an known point. Obstacles at night can fool you. That dark shadow - is it a hole or just a shadow. You can't see poisonous plants too well at night either.

Night time Land navigation just requires a little more confidence in your own day time land navigational abilities and a little more precision such as pace step counting to confirm distance (magnitude) of the vector etc. GPS can be used to confirm your location if your feeling a little lost in the dark.

Night time orienteering can be a fun past time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHydZ1-gHZc