John Chivall, Outdoor Instructor

You may remember from my recent blog entry about a walk in the southern Highlands that I mentioned an encounter with a passer-by on the hill who was very concerned that we had left it too late to summit the mountain and be down before dark. The expression on her face suggested that, should we not be off the mountain by nightfall, a certain - although unspecified - doom would befall us. She seemed unconvinced by my reassurance that I was in fact prepared for the shortness of the day, and she looked very unhappy when we carried on up the hill. As it happened, we saw a spectacular sunset on our descent, got some glorious pictures, and had a grand time trotting down through the forest in the dark, to reach our car an hour after sundown, safe and well.

Given the short length of the days at this time of year,  you will almost certainly find yourself coming off the hill after nightfall, unless you are an extremely early riser. Walking in the dark is not without its dangers. It can be hard to judge your footing on uneven ground,  increasing the risk of injury through trips and stumbles, and slowing you down. The size and distance of objects becomes difficult to assess as well, and it is common for people to become disorientated and make rash decisions. However, with a bit of skill, practise and good judgement, it is possible to find your way about the night-time hills, and open yourself to a whole new way of experiencing the outdoors.

It is very rarely utterly pitch-black at night. Unless there is complete cloud cover and you are far from any sizeable settlement whose lights may reflect from the cloud layer, there will always be some ambient light. This may come from the moon or the stars, or in the hour or so after sunset and before dawn, the residual glow of sunlight scattered through the upper atmosphere. When amongst the mountains on a clear night, you will see their shapes in silhouette against the sky. Lochs and burns reflect the stars, and as your eyes adapt to the conditions, it becomes possible to sense the form of the land around you. On a clear night, with a full moon high in the sky you can see almost as well as in daylight. However, it is inevitable that at some stage it will be too dark to see without a torch, especially when reading a map.

Shining a torch in your eyes is a guaranteed way to lose your eyes' dark adaptation, and it can take a long time to re-adapt - more than half an hour. Many headtorches come with red filters, as your eyes are not so easily blinded by red light, although seeing contour lines on OS maps is impossible with a red light. (Eddie Eddy Meechan had a very thorough article in TGO magazine last year where he compared different colours of light and how they affected night vision.)

Finding your way at night is essentially done in the same way as in poor visibility in daylight. You need to have a good idea of where you are, and where you are going. You should be alert to what the map tells you about the ground you are planning to cross. Just as in daylight, contours can indicate whether a slope will become too steep to descend. Finding handrail features such as burns or ridges can be useful. and strategies such as using collecting features help. You should be able to take a bearing and follow it in a straight line, accurately measuring the distance you have travelled by pacing and timing. There is no magic about night navigation, but you do need to be able to use more of the navigator's "toolkit" than you may do by day.

Incidentally, I'm taking advantage of the long dark winter evenings to run night navigation courses. The courses are just 3 hours long, and are a great way to practise the skills you need to walk in the dark. Come along, and you won't need to be afraid of the dark again.