Re: Night Hike





Steve Smith inscribed the following text on 19/09/05 12:21: 
Eddie Langdown wrote:


Worth considering linking it with a sleep-over so that kids aren't going
home at midnight- 3am whatever. Also, if they get a bit lost and you are
delayed back, you don't have parenbts waiting in the early hours.
My serious advice is that if even adults are walking with them, CHECK OUT
THE ROUTE!  Walk every inch, foot paths totally dissapear at night.  Have a
good look at the OS map and keep off of all roads, the trouble with 'country
roads' in the outer London area is that you get 'boy racers' zooming along
from pub to pub, just too dangerous!



Yes, I usually try to find a Scout hut around the area we're hiking in,
so they can sleep there overnight, and go home at a civilised time in
the morning.  Most groups are happy to let people use their floor for
the night for a small donation.

I usually do the grub in the hut at the end of the hike - hot soup,
bacon butties or something like that, and breakfast in the morning.

Also, if you don't have adults walking with them, set up checkpoints
often enough that they can't get too lost.  As Eddie said, paths
totally disappear at night, plus they don't look around them as they
would in the daytime, so do tend to just get their heads down and walk
in a straight line.

Don't make it too long - they'll be tired anyway, so a few miles is
plenty.  High ground is good, so they can see a view, especially if
there are towns around for them to look at, see if they can spot the
shape of roads and areas they know.

Cheers,

Steve.


We had a really good night hike around the Biggin Hill area a few weeks ago,
however one of the cars set-off with my keys to the mini-bus, so we were
delayed home by over an hour.
I always find a corner of a field or a wood to have a fire and dish out hot
chocolate and hot dogs, another place to recci. If you are sensible you can
light a good sized fire anywhere at night, stamp it out of course and no-one
is the wiser and kids love it. One trick is to plan a circular route, half
start one way the other start the other, cross at the grub stop  ... I'd say
5 miles if plenty for a serious stroll.

Eddie Langdown 16th Bermondsey London


Don't assume the kids have common sense!One patrol on a night hike we did in the New Forest couldn't find the disused railway (because there were no tracks or trains!)

On a more serious note, look at the weather forecast in advance. Fog/low cloud made one of our night hikes far more challenging than we had anticipated, especially when the kids insisted on keeping their torches on, which just reflected back at them.

One thing that worked really well for us was giving each kid a glow stick which they attached to their rucksack/hat/anywhere else they could. This meant that once we got to a good vantage point we could spot the kids (if we didn't hear them first, that is!)

Another thing that worked really well was setting up a base about half way round, where the Scouts had to use a portable stove to make a hot drink. this meant they had to stop, use a map, tell us where they were whilst waiting for the water to boil and all the Scouts could have a hot drink.

Linda

.