Darkness on the edge of town
I took Popcorn for a walk a few nights ago underneath a really dark sky. The darkness was the kind you don't see in the city often, especially in Salt Lake City, and especially in the winter.
I was walking north on 1700 East, passed 1700 South (sorry to burden you with street names, or in this case, numbers) and approached the edge of Wasatch Hollow Park. The park follows a creek with some hiking trails along it. No, I didn't go into the woods, but at the angle I was walking, it was dark enough. If I had looked to the west, I would have seen the lights of the Salt Lake Valley (we're a few hundred feet higher than most of the valley, so from the benches, you get a cool view of the city lights). Had I looked east, I would have seen the Wasatch Mountains about two miles away. Turning around south, I would have seen the lit intersection I just passed, including a Presbyterian church and a Chevron. But to the north, over the park and a few houses, on a street without lights, it was dark. With the clouds hanging low and no snow on the ground (it was warm in Salt Lake last week, and this evening, it was still about 50 degrees), there were no stars or moon to be seen (or even mountains to the north of SLC) and no light to be reflected off the ground. It was ... dark.
The sky was almost suburban dark. You don't see suburban dark too often any more -- there's just too many lights every place. Growing up in Chicago, an orange street light illuminated streets every 100 feet or so. But if you got into some suburbs, the sky darkened. If you got to a suburb on the fringes (Schaumburg 30 years ago, for example), you could look out over a farm on a cloudy night and see nothing. Maybe it was rural dark, where you see nothing because there's nothing to see and cloudy nights.
I don't want the call the dark forest dark, because that dark is right in front of you more than above you. But the other thing it reminded of was the dark you see (again, on non-clear nights -- stars, which normally I love, spoil this dark) looking out over a lake or ocean. Past a certain point away from the shore, nothing is there.
I wasn't as much spooked by the sky as awestruck. As a city-dweller, you don't see this sort of sky often, and Salt Lake City doesn't get too many cloudy nights. The spookiness came on a better-lit block later in the walk. The wind was beginning to pick up with a front coming in that would dump rain and snow on us the next day. I stopped to give Popcorn a treat and saw a tall tree with a shorter main trunk and several long (maybe 30-feet long), thick limbs move in the wind. And a couple of these mega-limbs looked like arms moving. It was so cool and freaky -- I should have taken video.
I was walking north on 1700 East, passed 1700 South (sorry to burden you with street names, or in this case, numbers) and approached the edge of Wasatch Hollow Park. The park follows a creek with some hiking trails along it. No, I didn't go into the woods, but at the angle I was walking, it was dark enough. If I had looked to the west, I would have seen the lights of the Salt Lake Valley (we're a few hundred feet higher than most of the valley, so from the benches, you get a cool view of the city lights). Had I looked east, I would have seen the Wasatch Mountains about two miles away. Turning around south, I would have seen the lit intersection I just passed, including a Presbyterian church and a Chevron. But to the north, over the park and a few houses, on a street without lights, it was dark. With the clouds hanging low and no snow on the ground (it was warm in Salt Lake last week, and this evening, it was still about 50 degrees), there were no stars or moon to be seen (or even mountains to the north of SLC) and no light to be reflected off the ground. It was ... dark.
The sky was almost suburban dark. You don't see suburban dark too often any more -- there's just too many lights every place. Growing up in Chicago, an orange street light illuminated streets every 100 feet or so. But if you got into some suburbs, the sky darkened. If you got to a suburb on the fringes (Schaumburg 30 years ago, for example), you could look out over a farm on a cloudy night and see nothing. Maybe it was rural dark, where you see nothing because there's nothing to see and cloudy nights.
I don't want the call the dark forest dark, because that dark is right in front of you more than above you. But the other thing it reminded of was the dark you see (again, on non-clear nights -- stars, which normally I love, spoil this dark) looking out over a lake or ocean. Past a certain point away from the shore, nothing is there.
I wasn't as much spooked by the sky as awestruck. As a city-dweller, you don't see this sort of sky often, and Salt Lake City doesn't get too many cloudy nights. The spookiness came on a better-lit block later in the walk. The wind was beginning to pick up with a front coming in that would dump rain and snow on us the next day. I stopped to give Popcorn a treat and saw a tall tree with a shorter main trunk and several long (maybe 30-feet long), thick limbs move in the wind. And a couple of these mega-limbs looked like arms moving. It was so cool and freaky -- I should have taken video.
Comments