The Thrill of a Hike-by-Night to the 2025 Total Lunar Eclipse - First-Hand Experience of an Aperture Abenteuer by AL

There are few thrills like a hike-by-night. As an adventurer and staff pledge at Juxtaposed Tides, well—let us just say the dark is quite usually my playing ground.

Our Aperture Abenteuers lean in volume toward night shoots as of late. And, if a poll is taken, my vote will likely go to MORE! More of these, please. The magic of the night coupled with the glory of the scene-to-be-shot, whatever comprises it, tends to notch up on my time-well-spent meter. A good time in nature is a monster slice of why life has meaning to me.

My latest A.A. with J.T. put me on a quest to capture another eclipse—this round of the lunar persuasion—and a total at that. The hike would be a 3-miler plus to our setup destination, and we would stay there until dawn (at least) to take in the full scope.

Up, up and around a knob of a pretty fair size would be our terrain, including the fording of several bits of swift stream. The negotiations of trail required for a vision-challenged trekker like me are daunters if I let them be; but my wont is to deny much that tempts to daunt. I purposed, as usual, to negotiate regardless.

Black Balsam or (Cloud)Bust: Juxtaposed Tides' Quest to Capture the 2025 Total Lunar Eclipse Part One

The trail was rooty-tooty, mud-sludgy (in spots), ford-heavy, and uphill-steady. Mountain laurel-canopied trails lit by moonlight offer up beams as through the lace of a goddess, and being that a full lunar eclipse was set to unfold/enfold, the opening act was a solo moon, entire and electric bright, providing us filigree earth for our care-chosen steps. Brazenly brilliant.

Part Two Black Balsam or Bust: A Quest to Capture and Witness the 2025 Total Lunar Eclipse, a Juxtaposed Tides Aperture Abenteuer

Giving apt description to night trekking in new territory is a tough task; the experience is so inclusive of the senses—and QueenVision naturally takes a seat further back. Gathering clues from sound sense holds premium wonder on these adventures.

Fear is known to trickle in when sight evades and sounds can’t be pinned down. In nature, it is a part of the journey requisitely, light or dark, but sometimes shadows cast and bits weirdly-illuminated by a brimming moon stir the dark recesses of the imagination.

Therein, the thrill—and many times a chill to go with.

This is the point when simple mantras come forth:

• Trek on and trust

• Take it slow and make it focused

• Quiet the thoughts and turn up the Now

• Fill your senses and imbibe the flavor

These mind games work like gems, and the sense symphony plays.

Streams start their whispers in a low hush—a crescendo ever-building as black corners are rounded. I let my ears drink in the performance.

Dank wafts of chocolate mud aroma cross my nostrils a bit before I arrive to negotiate around or through them, and I engage my lungs to max to have that smell become mine for memory.

Dips down to streams hold a coolness that goosies the skin exposed, and the air heavies on the hair in misty layers.

All of this—a natural and cleansing night bath of experience on our darkest journeys.

Yes, on this night, the earth required at points for a headlamp to shine. It was a moderate to difficult passage, and I surely do like to reach our destinations sans injury. The end goal of an Aperture Abenteuer is to roundly and soundly behold and capture a bit of majesty.

So, I took my time toward the eclipse, and I let the senses of the soul guide me safely.

We planned to stay the night in the open grasses between two balsam-bedecked knobs to absorb the gravity of a shadowed moon. As anyone could imagine, the spectacle was stellar and inspiring, as nature somehow always is.

There was nothing to do once there except behold… and try to capture.

Morning returned my eyes for the back-trek—and I could clearly “see” from whence we came.

Amidst the tranquility of nature, I stand silently on a rocky ledge, gazing at a wooded and just lit Sam Knob under the vast, clear blue sky.

As always, my darkly remembered imaginations sat juxtaposed beside a day aglow with reality on the miles of return. Sometimes, there is a pretty swell match between them; and oftener, two very different experiences of the same terrain sit in opposing grandeur.

The Yin and Yang of all of life. The darker version matching my mood in many cases.

In a visual, visible world where little is left to wonder, I am finding it is in the dark, more and more, that the fullness of a moment can come to me.

I hope to meet it again and again under moon, stars, clouds, and open sky—all belonging to nights waiting for me.

-AL, aperture abenteuerer and teammate with Juxtaposed Tides

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