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I considered a myriad of posting titles for this winter's solstice outing, but no single one seemed adequate to reflect an over fifteen hour hike in the dark, so feel free to fill in the blank yourself.

And so it began.

Thursday night at about 10:30, the earth started its wobble in the other direction, winter solstice, the official beginning of winter. I seem to have a penchant for bad ideas, and on this past summer solstice outing, I discovered a friend has similar, if not possibly more life threatening, appreciation of the concepts my mind spawns. When I mentioned my idea of through hiking the Appalachian Trail with foraging as the sole food source, my solstic companion Steve grew extremely excited and maybe even expired. Yes, I'm intrigued by that idea, but even I consider it a bad one.

My most recent bad idea: with, it seems, 2023 being my year of swapping solstice bike rides for hikes, I decided, with a wee encouragement from friend Jake, to implement my idea of hiking not through the shortest day, but rather the longest night, from sunset to sunrise. Being the not entirely unsociable gent I am, I offered joining this outing to the local cadre of trail runners as our sport is fundamentally just a version of hiking at greater speed and with less equipment. There was one taker, Steve.

For the summer solstice outing, Steve had joined me part way and stayed for roughly a third of my ramble. I'd known him from running for a few years, but that was the first extended chance for chatting, at the more conversation-friendly walking pace. In addition to learning his poor judgement to join me also extended to liking my Appalachian Trail idea, I discovered that Steve has quite a bike riding history, having done things on two wheels beyond my accomplishments. On our hike a couple nights ago, I learned that includes riding across this country!

Senset was at 4:16pm on Thursday night. Steve and I decided to meet atop Goat Peak in the Mount Tom Reservation state park, where an observation tower would allow for unobstructed observations of sunset, and if events allowed, sunrise some fifteen hours later. Plus, how could we pass on a name like Goat Peak?

Sometimes timing smiles. Thursday was also just over half way to a full moon, and the sky was clear, so we began our ramble heading south along the Mount Tom ridge with no more than lunar luminescence, at one point taking a group of headlamped hikers by surprise. They thought we were dogs, but I pointed out that canines tend to smell much better than we do.

Further down the hill, we happened upon another group hiking their way up. One individual wished us a happy solstice, which pleased me tremendously, knowing that others are also aware, and attuned, to recognizing the movement of our planet, outside. Sometimes people surprise me in wonderful ways.

We hiked. Then we hiked. Then we hiked some more after a pause for Steve's dinner and my next snack, some-when around my usual bedtime. Circadian rhythms be damned, I'd arrived at Goat Peak a little after 1pm to zip myself into a sleeping bag for some varied kitten naps (think of them as the baby spinach version of cat naps) in an attempt at depositing advance rest for future wthdrawl, so food intake was also going to happen at no particular schedule.

Steve asked if I thought I would begin to feel sleepy, even have trouble staying awake, later in the hike. With the preface of saying it was at best a guess, I replied that being in motion, I believed I'd be alert and awake. No, I've never pulled an all nighter, as bike racing through college meant I never considered the option of falling behind, but a couple decades ago I'd joined a friend for a trip to Atlanta to watch the Supercross race, followed by a mountain bike race in Florida the next day, followed by an overnight drive home that night. When it was my turn for a stint at the wheel in the wee hours of morning, I'd sprinted the length of the rest area twice and was fully alert for my full segment of the drive. I did yawn a few times through the solstice hike, but was pleased to learn my guess was right.

Remember my mention of the moon and good timing? Not being one to even infrequently stay up so late, or early if you prefer to acknowledge mornin, I'd never given consideration to moon-set time. I know the moon rises a half hour later every night through its cycle, and at roughly half way through its waxing phase, it had been nearly overhead when we began. This was great for negotiating a ridgeline trail that includes a fair number of cliff-edges, and we'd happily started our loop covering the ridge sections first. Then, at our southern turn around, the Mass Pike, we dropped. We dropped down, to the east, to the dark side, if you will.

Solstice hike and the star atop Mount Tom, looking like a proper solar orb to my phone's camera.

I like walking woods in the dark and even claim I may have my own special D.A.S., the inverse of Seasonal Affective Disorder. There's simply too much daylight in summer, and I don't want to stay up that late to venture in the dark. Plus, I need all of the too scarce nighttime for sleep!  Steve and I had a little less than half our outing without the direct moonlight that started us, and by 2pm, the moon had set. It was dark.

Fortunately, much of our return route was on wide dirt off-roadways, which along with the flatter terrain compensated to the time lost finding our way through, and sometimes off, trails neither of us had travelled before. We made quick time, and had a good time, returning to just below Goat Peak around 6am in the morning.

Goat Peak at 6am

Pretend the lights of Holyoke are a sunrise

We parted, Steve to ride his stashed bike out to his car outside the reservation gate and return to Greenfield for paper delivery (by bike!), and I continued up and just over the peak to my two wheels, locked to a tree. It was still dark. Sunset to sunrise, that was the plan, and it was likely in the low teens for temperature on the summit, so I kept walking, far warmer than riding, pushing my bike down the west side of the Mount Tom ridge into Easthampton and the Manhan Trail at its base. On that path, I could head northeast and then stroll through the dirt roads and meadows into the burg of Northampton.

Well, I could if the river and oxbow weren't flooded, in December.  What did I say about it almost seeming like the climate changed?  I was aware of the possibile flooding of the small, one-lane bridge at the junction of the Mill River and oxbow, in which case I'd planned a short backtrack and walk through the Audubon Society's Arcadia wildlife area, but I never made it to the bridge. The road was also flooded a quarter mile before Arcadia.

Turn around. Walk back. Walk back and loop the Manhan Trail back to the Easthampton mill buildings and the couple-mile-additional alternative route to Northampton. The sun did rise, on my back, and I had been walking since it set. Sure, the view-from-Goat-Peak-plan failed, but I traded it for a rising sun framed by old mills.

Alas, the rising sun does not necessarily bring immediately rising temperatures. While I'd been very manageably comfortable through my time with Steve, and had even donned an extra layer and mittens after descending to Easthampton, even still walking instead of the colder speed of rolling, I had somewhat numb fingers and could feel my body wasn't completely easily maintaining core temperature. I even tried a shuffling jog, but my legs, after more than fifteen hours of hiking, were not fans of that action, plus, it's possible I just didn't have the calories to burn.

Northampton, I know people there. The closest to the Easthampton border is my close friend Adele, and there was a good chance she'd be home early morning, and even a chance she wouldn't be completely opposed to me stopping at her apartment for a warming break. Hey, the sun had risen, I'd walked sunset to sunrise, a stop wasn't even a failure of that plan!

Yay! It worked. Adele was home, and she even let me flop onto her kitchen floor, warmed my hands in water that was checked as warm, but not hot (trick I've figured out: test warming water temperature with my tongue), and then proceeded to fill my belly with hot water, oatmeal, tea, and soup. Did I mention, yum!

After a good visit, I left Adele's a little after noon, riding back to my home by about 2pm, twenty-seven hours after I'd left on Thursday. It is now just under a day later, and I suspect I'll be processing my experience for quite a bit longer than that. Will I hike through the night again? I don't know, but I do not regret my choice to have done it. I'm happy I did.  

One friend in the running group to whom I'd offered joining the outing had replied, "I tend to celebrate solstice with rest. Enjoy not resting!" To coopt a line from JFK, we hiked through the longest night not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

And good.