When we camped at Henry Coe last year, I discovered that it's possible to follow a trail at night without a flashlight as long as the moon is full and there are no clouds. I remembered that a couple of weeks ago and wondered what it would be like to hike Pinnacles at night. A few web searches later, and I found that Pinnacles is open for night hikes, the moon would be full on August 16, and the Perseids would be in season as well.
Derek and Maureen and I left Sunnyvale at 4:30pm, stopped at a Mexican fast food joint in Hollister for dinner, and arrived at Pinnacles around 7:15pm. Surprisingly, along with the last few stragglers hiking out, there were other groups besides us getting set to hike in.
The mountains were between us and the sun on the way up, but we were able to catch the last few rays on the hills to the east. Not too much later, the moon came up. It's interesting how fast it appears to rise against the horizon. The Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours, or 1/2 a degree every 2 minutes, which is fast enough to see the motion against the horizon.
There was another group at a trail junction with good northeast visibility, so rather than stop we continued to the top of the hill. This gave us the bonus of seeing the last of the sunset to the west. (Note to self: make sure the camera is stable when taking a shot in the dark.)
The first "star" that became visible was in the wrong direction for Venus and the wrong color for Mars, so I guessed that it was Jupiter. Reviewing the star chart now, I'm pleased to see that I guessed correctly.
Derek was willing to ruin his night sight looking at a star chart, so we were able to find Cassiopea, which was a little further above the horizon than Perseus. We didn't wait long enough and it didn't get dark enough for Perseus to become visible, but we hoped to see some meteors that would radiate in a good direction to become visible. Somehow Maureen managed to spot two, including one in entirely the wrong direction, but Derek and I didn't see any.
We did see a satellite, though. I didn't think to note the time, but based on what flew over that night, I would guess that it was Lacrosse 2.
It was still fun checking out the stars and enjoying the cool weather. Pinnacles is normally very hot in the summer, but even still we took lots of cool clothing for the desert night. As it turned out, it was wonderful hiking and sitting weather, even in shorts and a T-shirt.
Hiking down in the dark was neat. It was easy to follow the trail, although in the shadows I was glad of my hiking boots to protect my toes from tripping and my ankles from twisting.
