When encountering the absence of light, light becomes an even more astounding thing. Einstein’s vision of light, as a particle and a wave, doesn’t much matter when the absence of light is slowing your progress. When hiking at night the first observation I made was how challenging depth perception was. I was using a single source and, in my case, a dim light source. By using just a narrow, beam, I was voiding the millions of years of evolution that gave us binary vision. Akiva, was prepared with new batteries and we shortly enhanced our lights and that really made a difference. Those LED lights that slowly loose brightness are great, they provide a little bit of light even when the battery power is low. But, one must remember to change the batteries; even if they look like they are working property when you are at home testing it out.
So we hiked; through the forested lower sections of Cadillac mountain, among trees with bark of different colors and shapes, and among leaves that are green. Yet, we could not perceive the color. In low light, color vision is lost. Our cones, those responsible for sending signals to the brain regarding wavelengths of light, and thus signaling what we see as color, do not work well in dim light.
The leaves of the tree, of course, do not absorbed much of the green wavelengths of light, and thus are perceived as that reflected color, to us. This is similar in the ocean’s algae. Green algae is bright green, lighter than most tree leaves, and has the photosynthetic pigment array most similar to land plants. As you travel deeper into the water, the green algae, is overtaken by brown algae, and deeper still we find red algae. This is due to a property of light, or rather a property of water. All wavelengths do not pass into the water easily. Red wavelengths are the first to drop out, get attenuated, thus the deeper-living red algae can afford to reflect these wavelengths as they will not be getting much of it anyway.
More than a mile through the trees and a very dark night, we emerged into more open space: Granite slabs on the ridge of the mountain. It was easier to see here, though the sun had yet to show and did not provide any real perceptible light on the rocks. The rocks themselves are light colored and this may have helped the whole situation. When we stumbled, okay I stumbled, the rest of my party were graceful as gazelles, it was not due to more visibility, but the less functioning brain that was awoken at 3 AM in order to finish the hike before sunrise.
Soon we were back into some tree cover, the deep dark returned. But only for a short while. Minutes later even my old eyes noticed how much easier it was to see. Evidence that the earth was continuing to rotate and our spot on it would soon spin into the path of the Sun’s rays, which travel 94 million miles in about 8 minutes to find this third planetary rock. It was still nearly an hour until true sunrise so this light was twilight, though I do not know which twilight; soon, if it was not already, it would be civil twilight, the last before sunrise. Civil twilight is from 6 degrees below the horizon to the horizon, and the time it takes to travel that is different at different latitudes, here in Maine its about a half hour, so I guess, at an hour to sunrise, we were still in Nautical twilight. We hiked on.
Shortly, as we again rose above the trees, the cars heading up to the summit were visible. As we hiked into Civil twilight and the last 1/2 hour before sunrise, we approached the summit. In this case the true summit, offset from the major paved paths around the most visited section of the top of Cadillac mountain. Our plan was to stay near the true summit, away from most of the tourists.
The uphill part of the hike up was over, and after our movement stopped we felt the cool morning air. It was time to bundle up a bit and have a snack.
The sky was …well I’m going to write amazing but that really doesn’t cover the growing orange glow along the horizon. I’m not sure I can express with words the whole brunt of the sight. I suppose this is why people return to view sunrises and sunsets again and again, there is something…dare I say, magical about the whole thing.
The sun started rising. For the first minute or so the mountain top was quiet.
The hike down, across the granite slabs and into the trees, made the whole process of viewing the sunrise, better somehow. Again the experience is, yes I dare write it again, magical.
Both of my hiking partners on this chilly day were spectacular. I already mentioned that Akiva brought energy in the form of batteries that helped greatly. Olivia brought her inner light, uh oh getting philosophical, that added another type of energy to our adventure. Both lights helped this old man get up a mountain at 3AM. Thanks Olivia and Akiva
Who is up for a hike to view the sunset next time?