Snomo Glow

A while back, Hummingbird and I somehow came up with the idea of doing a night hike with glow jewelry.  Because, yes, this is what normal women in their 40's do for fun.  (I'll bet you that's actually true, and if someone thinks it's dumb, they're probably just jealous of our awesomeness. ;-) 

Originally we thought it'd make a cool birthday hike for me, but we also wanted to do it during a full moon, and my birthday lands on a new moon this year.  So we bumped up the date a couple weeks to make it work.  And then we bumped it up another day…

I noticed the forecast for the true full moon was to be cloudy, but the day before was clear, and the moon would still be "full enough," so we scrambled to prepare to hike while the hiking was good.  Hummingbird did an amazing job securing our needed glow sticks at the literal last minute, as the ones she ordered weren't due to be delivered until the next day.  (Yes, also at the last minute for our original plan. What can I say, it's how we work. LOL #genetics)

We finished our respective obligations for the day just in time to meet for sunset.  As I recall, moonrise was approximately an hour before sunset on that day, so we'd be able to get a nice view of both, and have the moon high enough to illuminate the trail once darkness fell.  (Another benefit of not hiking the next day, as the moon would rise later than sunset.)  We made it to the parking lot with just enough time to zip out to a little pond along corridor 22 which we thought could make for a pretty sunset spot.  Or it would have been enough time on a normal hike…

We didn't think about "costuming" time, and ended up spending every one of those precious pre-sunset minutes in the car, decorating ourselves & our gear with glow sticks.  Worth it!!  We didn't see any exciting hints of color in the sky anyway, so we figured we probably didn't miss much.  Once we were all glowy, we at last started hiking, figuring we'd stick to the planned route, and just hike as long as we felt like it. 

At this spot on the snowmobile trail, it continues from the parking lot in a long downhill slope.  It's not steep, but, man, it really sucks hiking back up that hill at the end of a hike.  Partway down said hill, I stopped and said to Hummingbird, "before we go down this any more, since we missed sunset, and there's nothing else particularly interesting along this trail, what if we turned around and hiked in the other direction?  If nothing else we'd avoid having to hike uphill to finish."  While she wasn't sure if the tampon trail (where I suggested aiming) would be packed out, she agreed it was worth trying.  We'd at least pass "The Silent People," which would be entertainingly eerie after dusk.  And most importantly, we'd finish on a downhill and flat, as it should be.

The Silent People have come to life!  Bwahaha!

Turns out this direction was far more rewarding than the other!  The entire route was equally well packed by snowmobiles, and now we were aimed directly towards the rising moon.  As we ascended the spur, we were even treated with some late sunset color glowing through the trees along the horizon!  We lost sight of the full moon along the lower trails, but when we neared the "summit," there it was, smack in our face.  We were so glad we switched up our plan!  

 

The glow "jewelry" worked out great too.  We had so much fun!  Plus, Hummingbird now has a bunch of leftover glow sticks, as well as some sparklers that she brought but forgot to use, so I guess we're just going to have to do ANOTHER glow hike at some point!  :-) 

 

To think, we'd have missed all of this if we had started hiking early enough to follow our original route.  True, being glow-in-the-dark would have still been a blast, but the scenery was definitely better in plan B.

And hell yes, I drove home like this!  hehehe

3/6 Tampon trail glow hike, 1.48 mi, 203 ft, 39/45 min