Chasing the Northern Lights

Hi Blog!

As we travel further north through British Columbia on our way to Alaska, we are hoping to be able to see the Northern Lights - those magical mystical bright dancing lights of the aurora borealis. As we get closer and closer to the longest day of the year, it will get harder and harder to see that brilliant collision between electrically charged particles from the sun and the earth's atmosphere. It needs to be dark outside. Right now it starts getting light about 4:00 a.m. and doesn't get dark again until after 11:00. We either have to stay up late, or set an alarm.  After discussing the pros and cons, the alarm was set for 1:30 a.m.

After a rude awakening, we quickly threw on our warm clothes and stumbled out of the rig. We walked around the corner of the campground to the bridge over the Bear River to give us the best view north. The moon was so bright it cast shadows on the ground. We didn't even need our headlamps to see where we were going.

As we reached the river valley, the moon cast an eerie glow across the snow capped peaks. Unfortunately, our camera does not have a low enough light setting to capture those ghostly images. We waited patiently staring expectantly at the northern sky. We listened carefully to make sure nothing was sneaking about, but not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  After about 20 minutes, we agreed that with the moon almost full there were no northern lights to be seen.

We quickly returned to bed and promised ourselves we would continue the search again when the moon was not so full. We drifted off to sleep dreaming of dancing lights, scattered clouds, light streamers, arcs, rippling curtains and shooting rays lighting up the night sky with an eerie glow of green, pink, red, yellow, blue and violet.

Alas, at our next stop we learned from the campground owner that it's rare to see the Northern Lights during the summer months and that we might have to return in the early Spring or late Fall to have a good chance.  Ah, well, for now those dreams of the dancing lights might be all we'll have.