Winter has become my favorite season for running, largely attributable to the dark, pre-sunrise skies. I live in a small, mountain town on the East Coast and am beyond fortunate to have a solid 4:30–5 a.m. running crew most days of the week. Although we don’t necessarily articulate it, when we go on our early morning mountain runs we are, to some degree, traveling back in time to a simpler space.
We have a favorite route—a loop—that takes us up a never-ending gravel road to an open ridgeline on the top of a mountain, 2,500 feet above our homes. The smallest hint of any moonlight means all headlamps are turned off as we make our way up the mountain.
It’s an initial shock, turning off your headlamp in the dark, as your eyes slowly adjust to the dim natural light. This is especially true for those of us in our late 40s and beyond. It’s like turning off the television, a sudden forced compliance with the world you are presently in.
We trust the gravel road that we have run on hundreds of times, but we also know the road is rutted and ever changing, which is part of the charm. Part of this experience is not just letting our eyes adjust but also our feet.
We run and power hike up through the forest, with moon shadows streaking the dark gray of the gravel. Most days we are greeted by one of our local owls—usually a barred owl, but sometimes a great horned owl. We stop our conversation and do our best hoots in return, and the owls almost always respond.
It gets colder as we get higher. There is something about the cold that enhances the feelings of ancient tones—perhaps it’s a simple reminder that we are not in control. Our fingers and faces grow numb and slow. The deer are bedding down in their typical places, always staring at us with reflective eyes trying to decide whether to stay or bolt.
We eventually break through the trees as we reach the ridgeline. Here, the sky is always on show. It becomes wide with stars spanning the horizon.
And then there’s the moon. The moon is in the southern sky when we start and dips towards the western horizon as we ascend the mountain. It’s no wonder the full moon was the calendar marker for so many ancient civilizations and it saddens me just how absent this moon cycle is from our modern lives. Throughout the seasons, this cycle is constantly occurring, impacting the natural world from the tides to the animals, but rarely does it affect us. There is something so simplistic about this connection—moon, stars, weather, forest, animals—and being immersed in it before the world wakes up is incredible.
Finally, we descend down a sketchy technical trail that takes us straight down the mountain and back out to the roads that lead home. It’s still dark and our world is still asleep. Our conversations are usually running deep as we remain bathed by the stars above, brighter now that the moon has dipped below the western mountains.
As we turn into the neighborhood, we prepare ourselves for the re-entry into the modern world. There are clocks on the microwaves, calendars on the wall and iPhones screaming for our attention. But we travel on foot by the light of the moon and if we allow it, we find a sacred connection to the rest of the world.