darkest place you have ever been?

[emu124]

Opal search in Australia, the mine was 30 m (100 ft) deep. We crawled through 60 cm (2 ft) wide tunnels with a pickaxe and cheap 9 volt headlamps.
I still shudder when I think back on it.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

I think for most people, the darkest place they will ever be in their life is a cave. In every cave tour I've ever been on, there is always a point where the tour guide will turn off the lights, and it's so dark you can almost feel it.

 

[johnnycopy]

Caves by rapid city. Underground and as we approached the dead bottom of the decline The guides stopped us and shutoff the lights… darkness!!

 

[Beretta1526]

Mammoth Cave and a film loading closet in the darkroom at school.

 

[Burgess]

^ ^ ^ I always enjoyed ZORK !

And it certainly showed us the true value of a Flashlight.

 

[DBee]

For me, the darkest place I have ever been to is in the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog, in North Wales, where we used to go abseiling in the caves, and walking and camping in the mountains. I would post some photos that I took inside the mines to show how pitch black it was, but I don't think they would do it justice!
With our head-lamps turned off it was truly properly dark. Not the sort of place you would want to get lost in without a flashlight.

The photo below shows the outside of Llechwedd Slate Mine, Blaenau Ffestiniog

ps: I had to look up how to spell it!!

 

[Hemicrusher]

I live in Los Angeles and when I was a teenager in the late 70s, early 80s, my friends and I used to walk through underground storm drain tunnels in the summer. Some of the tunnels went for a mile or more and there was no light in some of the stretches.

 

[Lemurian]

I can relate to Hemicrusher: water tunnels in the East Bay up in Northern California. They where called the "Time Tunnels" for a reason. Don't get me started on the Secret Sidewalk!

 

[Lemurian]

Oh, and Alcatraz. We got put into solitary confinement during the tour...Inky cold nothingness. No bueno.

 

[RedBarediver]

Above water: when I served and was in the bush on a moonless night. I had a NVS on my rifle and through it I could see pretty well. Without it, nothing. Literally not my hand in front of my face. And this is even after sitting in the darkness for a half hour or so to get some night vision going. That was a fun night.

Luckily this was only a few nights of my deployment as most of the other nights you had moonlight to help guide your way.

Underwater: every time I go cave diving I tend to turn the light off at some point and just hover for a few minutes to acclimatise myself to the velvet blackness again. During my cave training class, my instructor would turn off everyone's lights and make me and my buddy exit in the dark whilst sharing air. No idea how that woman could see us or what we were doing. She used to say the cave gods are watching us and will know if we don't respect them or the cave,

 

[RedBarediver]

Opal search in Australia, the mine was 30 m (100 ft) deep. We crawled through 60 cm (2 ft) wide tunnels with a pickaxe and cheap 9 volt headlamps.
I still shudder when I think back on it.

No thanks. Just the thought of it makes me cringe.

Funny enough, I have been in tighter places more than 100 feet underwater and about 45 mins or so away from daylight inside a cave whilst wearing a set of double tanks. Even in the darkness, that doesn't bother me. Just thinking of doing the same in a dry cave is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.

 

[novice]

Mammoth Cave and a film loading closet in the darkroom at school.

I had forgotten about the beginning photography class I took at a community college decades ago. Trying to load the film into the film reel correctly without getting fingerprints all over the film, without being able to see anything, could be frustrating.

 

[ampdude]

Any cave or underground structure I've ever been in that has zero lighting. That about covers it I think.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Last night hiking Black Mountain, Ramona, CA. I hiked up the 7.3 mile trail to the top of the mountain by sunset. Very thick fog rolled in. Turned on my Nitecore HC60 headlight on high (1000 lumens) and couldn't see through the fog to the ground. Actually got blinded by the fog with it reflecting the light back in my face. Turned on my Nitecore E4K on high (1050 lumens) which was just adequate to see 10 feet held lower to the ground where fog was thinner. Had to use it at 4400 lumen turbo a couple times on some rough patches of trail. It was sprinkling all the way down the trail. When the light battery died, I switched back to the headlight below the fog rather than change batteries in the rain. My hand was shaking holding the flashlight due to some neurological disorder causing hand tremors so going hands free helped. Hiking through that fog was very dark. Without a light on, I couldn't see my hand inches from my face. Lessons learned: Bring a backup flashlight and headlight with similar capabilities to your primaries. (Had Acebeam H40 for backup headlight but no backup flashlight like E4K.) Weather and bugs will dictate if you can use a flashlight or headlight and whether or not you can change batteries. If you have hand tremors, take a flood light so you aren't hiking with something like a strobe light. Unfortunately for me, floodlights don't cut through fog as well as spotlights (the E4K was adequate though.)

 

[gearhead1972]

Old iron ore mine by me in Brewster NY, other than that, many overnights in the Adirondacks.