Twigs snapped and leaves crunched as my three comrades and I plodded up the wooded mountainside in southwestern Virginia. The added weight of backpacks and sleeping bags gave us a workout, but we pressed on, determined to reach the top.
Earlier I had learned that there was a good chance of seeing northern lights this night, October 10, 2024, with a predicted KP rating of 8. Several friends were as excited as I was to attempt viewing the aurora from a wide open mountaintop, so we quickly made plans.
Reaching the top, we clamored up on a big rock that offered an open view in all directions. A long light-green cloud-type glow hung above the northern horizon. Spanning from the northwest, it arched slightly higher, right across the Big Dipper Bowl, and on lower into the northeast. This glow was distinctive, but inactive.
Watching this glowing area for a while, we started wondering if perhaps the main display of the night had been the earlier display in the northeast after sunset. We had mostly missed that due to an evening work bee, and our preparations for a night on the mountain.
The first quarter moon was still high in the sky, faintly lighting the distant mountain ranges. and washing out some of the Milky Way band arching above us.
We kept watching the glowing area above the northern horizon. Around 10 p.m., the bank in the north became alive! Vertical pink and red shafts began rising from the light-green base, and soon the whole northern sky, from northwest to northeast, was filled with vertical shafts! What beautiful colors and intense shafts! In the northwest they were tilted west, due north they were vertical, and to the northeast they were tilted east, making a crown-like effect! They reached around 40° high above the horizon.
At one point, several white shafts appeared above us, which we watched very closely, hoping to see light pulsing through them, like we had seen during the displays of May 10. We didn’t see any pulses, and these overhead shafts soon disappeared. Red and green glowing areas appeared and disappeared in various areas, as the vertical shafts did their show!
This display lasted until around 10:30. Then things simmered down to the former state: a long, low-lying, slightly arched, light-green glow above the northern horizon.
We continued watching for more activity and also just simply enjoyed the beauty of the night. The moon continued its slow journey lower in the west. Jupiter rose in the east, south of the constellation Auriga.
To the south, over the next mountain range, the lights of several distant towns glimmered, showing signs of civilization. While countless people spent the night in their warm dwellings, we were on the mountain, settling into our sleeping bags. But I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone in their cozy beds, not with what we had just seen, and the beauty of God’s creation in the sky above us.
With the northern glow staying dormant, my comrades drifted off to sleep in their cozy sleeping bags, but I couldn’t sleep. I would settle down in my bag, only to very soon start wondering if there was any activity in the northern sky, so I’d sit up and check. Finally I decided to forget about sleeping and just enjoy the panoramic view of the sky and watch for displays.
Soon after midnight, several beams emerged and then faded. I woke several of the boys one time when multiple shafts appeared.
By this time the moon had sunk out of sight. This made it easy to detect faint activity, and enhanced my views of the Milky Way arching high overhead. The light-green still glowed in the north, with faint shafts rising every now and then. Jupiter climbed higher in the sky, as did Orion the Hunter. An occasional meteor added to the scene. One was a green fireball low in the northeast, just before 1 a.m.
Around 1:30, I finally settled into my sleeping bag.
My alarm clock interrupted the peaceful night at 5:15 to keep us on schedule with the rest of the world. We packed up and descended the mountainside. Several light-green shafts emerged briefly in the northwest to tease us and to bid us goodby.
What a gorgeous mountaintop adventure this had been. Thank You, God.