As I stepped out of Harry Reid International Airport on a bright March afternoon, my hand flew up to shield my eyes, accustomed to the dim light of a long, gray Tennessee winter. I had headed west for the sun, but even more so for the night sky, so I was hoping for clear weather ahead. I boarded a bus that would take me two hours east to Utah, where I planned to spend a starry night at Under Canvas Lake Powell-Grand Staircase.
The glamping resort, one of 12 Under Canvas sites, is anchored on a canyon plateau in southern Utah and is the first resort in the world to be certified by the nonprofit light pollution authority. DarkSky International. My goal was to beat the heat and the crowds – but what I really wanted was to be an early adopter of certified star resorts.
The DarkSky Approved Accommodation The program is another step forward in the history of non-profit advocacy to reduce light pollution. In general, the requirements for certification include placement in an “extremely” dark location. have approved means of reducing the effect of light at night; and provide night sky conservation educational materials to visitors.
Under Canvas, said James Brigagliano, the program manager for DarkSky, was a good fit for the project because the company’s sites are in dark locations and already follow environmentally friendly practices. Since the Lake Powell site was certified in August, other Under Canvas sites at the National Park Service Great Circle Area western parks have also been approved.
Hoping for good weather
In St. George, Utah, I rented a car and headed southeast, with the Pine Valley Mountains looming to the north. The second half of the two-hour drive was on Route 89, which runs from Mexico to Canada. My section, about 60 miles long, was punctuated by sienna-hued dips and dips and blue skies.
At 3:30 p.m., I bounced along a red dirt road until the cream tents of Under Canvas came into view. There are 50 in total, spread over 220 acres, all with a view Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monumenta vast geological formation that occupies approximately 1.87 million acres of public land, from desert to coniferous forest.
As I got out of my car, I looked at the sky warily. The clouds were gathering.
The dirt lot had vehicles from western states and a few from the northeast. Like me, these travelers had arrived early—a day after the resort opened for the season—to take advantage of the cool weather and outdoor activities like horseback riding, hiking, rappelling in nearby Elephant Canyon, and private tours of the Grand Staircase. There is also boating and fishing on Lake Powell, although the water level there has been greatly affected by the drought.
Many, like me, came primarily for the night sky in Utah, which has large tracts of land with little artificial light and a dry climate that translates into less water vapor, which can cloud the stars.
But would the weather cooperate?
Reaching for the stars
Under Canvas is certainly not the first hosting company to tout its access to the night sky. For the last 20 years or so, hotels in bucolic settings, along with permanent glamping sites, have been working by looking at the stars in their guest offerings. There is the observatory at Primland Resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the astronomy dinner at Soneva Jani in the Maldives. Elqui Domos in northern Chile it has geodesic domes and cabins that open to the sky.
Driven by stargazing, Under Canvas began working with DarkSky in 2021 to come up with a lighting design plan.
“Getting certified by DarkSky was altruistic in intent,” said May Lilley, director of marketing at Under Canvas. “It’s part of our mission to make sure our guests leave with a slightly different philosophy, whether that means simply turning off the lights when they leave a room.
DarkSky’s hope, Mr. Brigagliano said, is that the new certification program will become the de facto standard for all accommodations in locations dark enough to pass the organization’s protocol.
Attention to the night sky couldn’t happen sooner. ONE study published in the journal Science in 2023 revealed that sky glow from cities and towns increased by 10 percent each year from 2011 to 2022, underscoring the stunning results from 2016 study This showed that 99 percent of those living in high-density areas around the world can no longer see most stars, if any.
The accommodation category complements DarkSky’s existing certification program for International Dark Sky Placesof which there are more than 200, incl Zion and Yellowstone national parks? The Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in Australia; the Namibrand Nature Reserve in southern Namibia; and even urban places, such as Parc du Mont-Bellevue in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
The response to news of the program was relatively immediate, Mr. Brigagliano said. “So far, nearly 100 resorts, retreats, ranches and other accommodations from the United States, Canada, Britain, Thailand, Australia, India, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the Cook Islands have contacted us about with the program. We have interest from a variety of businesses, from non-profit organizations to high-end luxury real estate.”
Where are the stars?
Inside the common area — a large tent that doubles as reception, restaurant, snack bar and hangout — a couple from San Francisco with a dachshund had just finished signing up. The woman who checked me in took me on an ATV to my tent safari style.
All tents are within a gentle cry of each other and all have decks, private bathrooms with showers and four vertical walls that provide more space than traditional pyramid shaped tents. Inside mine was a king-size bed, two leather chairs, and a wood stove. My choice, the Stargazer (I paid $432, including taxes and fees), also has a sky-view window located above the bed.
I went out on deck. The valley was dark under thick clouds. Back inside, I could hear the pattern of rain on canvas. I abandoned my plan to walk up to the site’s rut canyon — rut canyons can flood — and slipped under the viewing window, which was spattered with raindrops. The prospects of a starry night seemed remote.
I zipped up my parka, wishing I had brought better shoes for hiking in the rain, and made my way down to the main common area. The grilled trout ($25) looked tempting, but the cafeteria was uncomfortably cold. I pulled a protein bar from my backpack and sat under one of the sheltered gathering areas, watching the rain transform Utah’s striated Navajo sandstone into deeper shades of coral and off-white. The wide valley between me and the Grand Scala might have been two miles or twenty, the scale was so unfathomable. A couple from Idaho in oilskin jackets and hiking boots who looked like they could lift Mount Everest out of ice joined me. Unlike me, they were better prepared for bad weather, which didn’t stop them from hiking nearby canyons.
By 8pm the rain had become a misty drizzle. Hoping for the best, I set my alarm for 3:30am, around the time the outer regions of the Milky Way appear in the Northern Hemisphere (with the right conditions).
When the alarm went off, I opened my eyes to stars shining through the still damp window. I got dressed, grabbed a battery powered lantern and headed out into the night. Above me, in all directions, the sky was finally unblocked. I couldn’t have been more surprised.
I drove down the dirt road, which was lit by small solar ground lights, to get closer to the rim of the canyon. Smoke from stoves in many tents drifted and disappeared. A jack rabbit crossed my path. I sat on a piece of dry scrub. That was it colorado plateau, one of the darkest parts of the United States, and even with a cloud or two remaining, thousands of stars shone through the darkness. Was that the veil of a distant Galaxy above me? With a clear view to the west, I was pretty sure I could see Venus. Using my stargazer app, skyview, I was able to find the constellations Orion and Leo.
I lay down and stayed there until the stars faded in the pre-dawn sky and the morning light began its spectacular migration across the wide valley.
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