Scores are done and uploaded! Congratulations to 1st New Westminster Rangers who finished in first place with a total score of 202. In second place was 3rd Cloverdale Venturers , with a total score of 199. The top place finisher, adjusted for age, was the 16th Beaconsfield - Jr Patrol (average age 10.6 yrs), with 206.2 Pts after adjustment.

Our most visited station was K with 106 (out of 153 hike groups) having visited each of them.

We will hold the original score sheets until NiteHike 2025 has completed. But don't expect us to every want to look at them again!

With Jamboree just around the corner, head over to The Rover Outpost for a great sale on previous year's NiteHike badges to use as traders! Get 75% off when you mix and match at least 20 previous years' crests (excluding 2024) until June 20th 2024!

Wow! We had 796 youth hikers and 346 adult hikers! Including our station and HQ volunteers, partners at Metro Parks, and extra purchased badges for the collectors back home, we ended up with 11 badges left over from 1400!

We'll try and get another update up in the next week or so when scores are done (thanks to our dedicated score tabulation volunteer!)

In the meantime, please submit your theme suggestions by clicking here

NiteHike is soon! For those of you who don't know where the headquarters is located, it's at St. Anselms church across the street from the University Golf Course. The street address is 5210 University Blvd, and there is ample parking for drivers, and bus service to in front of HQ. Please note that Sunday morning bus service may not start until after the event is over, so arrangements should be made to get safely home from NiteHike.

NiteHike is only a few days away! We felt this was a good time to let everyone know who will be participating that there are a few things they are required to have the evening of the hike. There's two lists below...one is gear for the group as a whole, and one is gear for each member to have.

If your group has members that have not been pre-registered, you can add them on when you check in at HQ. If you have youth that will be leaving early, or joining in late, make sure we know about it, and please text or call us when they are leaving the park so we can cross them off. We need to know who all is in the park at any given time.

Headquarters is located at St Anselms Church, with parking just down the street at the University Chapel. There is -NO- parking at UBC Golf before 630pm due to other events. There is additional limited pay parking available next to HQ, and some additional parking in the streets around HQ. We STRONGLY encourage everyone to car share, take transit, or get dropped off if at all possible.

If you're using a GPS enabled device, you can download a GPX file of all the station coordinates here, or access a GPS enabled map here.

Just a reminder, all hike groups should have the following:

- two leaders (your group may have to hike with another group to meet minimums)
- proof of registration in your organization.
- medical certificates / forms for all attending members
- a cell phone in case of emergency
- large ziplock / waterproof bag to keep hike papers in
- basic first aid kit with bandaids and tylenol / aspirin
- spare water bottle and flashlights / batteries

In addition, each youth should have:

- clothes appropriate for the evening, along with a waterproof jacket and socks
- good, proper hiking shoes for hitting the trail
- snacks to provide energy throughout the evening
- a flashlight (trails are VERY dark)
- a water bottle (there are a couple places throughout the park to fill it)
- a travel mug for hot chocolate at stations that are providing it (stations do NOT provide cups)
- a sturdy backpack to hold everything in, that's fitted properly for comfort

There will be additional information posted here by Friday at noon, so please check back! In addition, please share your photos with us and if you use Twitter, tag @BCNiteHike or use the hashtag #nitehike24 ! See you on the trails!

Hello again everyone! I hope you're all looking forward to another exciting NiteHike at Pacific Spirit Park! I have a few things I want to talk about in this blog post, and a few bits of news for everyone, so bear with me please! Only a couple weeks left until NiteHike! Remember, NiteHike is open to all current members of Scouts Canada and Girl Guides of Canada (but intended for ages 8ish and up). If you're a member of the BSA, you're also welcome to attend, but please check with us about any requirements your group may have.

Pre-Registration & Payment

You still have the option to pre-pay your registration fees. The main page has a post with the online registration form. You can pre-pay for the number of hikers and leaders you expect to bring to NiteHike, and you can also select what time you want to check-in at HQ (to avoid the rush). Refunds are generally unavailable, but substitutions can occur even on the day of the event. You will still need to print your hike group information card (emailed to you after registering) and bring it with you.

You can ALSO download a copy of the hike group information card here. We recommend opening it with Adobe Acrobat to fill it out, but make sure to print it and bring it with you. We can't receive electronic registration forms at this time. Making sure this form is filled out ahead of time will allow you to skip the line, even if you're not paying until you're on site.

Important Things of Note

- NiteHike is an overnight hike with activity stations through the woods. There is no base camp for your group or anything to that effect.
- Each hike group is 4-7 youth plus two leaders. Groups with less youth may have to partner up. Groups of more than seven will be broken up, but will still hike together.
- NiteHike welcomes members of Scouts and Guides ages 8 and up. We have special routes for the younger sections so they can get their feet wet without hiking the entire park.
- All hike group members must be registered members of their respective organizations. We do sometimes ask for proof. Also make sure you have medical forms with you.
- Your group is welcome to do as few or as many stations as you want. If you're too tired and cranky, it's best you call it a night, lest the group hate the activity in the future.
- This is a hike. In the woods. In the dark. The trails are not lit, and could be wet / muddy / cold. Please make sure you dress appropriately, and bring a decent source of light. Your cell phone doesn't count, and won't last the whole night anyways.
- Bring a travel mug! We have hot chocolate stations throughout the park, as well as a couple places where you can fill up a water bottle, so make sure you bring drinking vessels!
- We also have hot dogs! Each participant receives two tickets (good for two hot dogs) that they can 'spend' at any hot dog station they want. You still will want to bring a snack.
- Read the rules! They can be found in a somewhat easy to read format at this location.
- Make sure you bring at least a change of socks, and enough dry clothes to get you through the night. Your Scouters should be able to help you prepare your kit.
- If you make it through the night (or even if you don't), each participant at the end of the night will receive a NiteHike badge.

Registration is $8 per youth, and $5 per leader (first two leaders free). Group payments may be made by the following methods:

Cash, Cheque, Visa, Mastercard, Interac (Tap Only)

We've always made it easy for you to buy badges from previous events -AT- NiteHike, but now we're excited to announce a partnership with our long time badge designer / supplier (since 2009). As of today, you can purchase old-stock NiteHike patches directly from The Rover Outpost 365 days a year! Right now there are a few years we're out of stock on. We might decide to do a limited edition re-manufacture of older badges, but it's not for sure yet.

If you want to get some of the previous NiteHike's badges, head on over to TRO and check it out! 50% of all sales come directly back to the NiteHike organizing committee to put towards out future events. Of course, we'll also have them available at NiteHike for those who want to see them up close first.

And since it's worth mentioning, the 2024 badge is in hand and looks amazing! Check out this great preview!

Yes, you can! If you have absolutely no clue how many kids to expect, you can always register in person after 630pm. We encourage people to register online so we know more accurately how many people to expect, and to also spread out the waiting around. But by all means, you can register in person at HQ on the Saturday. You can get a little bit ahead of things by filling out and printing out the Hike Group Information Card. We also have them at HQ in case you forget it, don't have a printer, or have too many questions that can't be answered on the website.

This is a question that has been asked a few times over the years, so let's answer it!

The reason for this is that not all activity stations can be scaled up for more participants. If your group is supposed to build and carry a stretcher through the woods (for example), too many youth can result in participants getting left out. Stations are planning around four to seven youth per group, and we've found that over the years, that works out best.

But what if you have more than seven youth? Why you split into two hike groups of course! It's best to split the groups as evenly as you can, so that both groups get to participate equally, though some groups might split with the most senior kids on one team to really push for a win, with everyone else on another team. Keep in mind that each hike group is required to have two leaders, so if you don't have enough leadership to meet requirements, your hike groups will be required to hike together for safety, even if they are competing against each other!

If you have a question you'd like answered, please email nitehike@nitehike.org and we'll answer it!

NiteHike 2024 is scheduled for April 6th - 7th, 2024

The theme this year is NiteHike Goes Adventuring! Think dungeons and dragons / fantasy RPG adventure!

Save the Date for NiteHike 2024!

Google Yahoo Outlook ICS

There will be hot chocolate at a couple stations through the park, and usually at least two hot dog stations, but youth should come prepared with sufficient snacks to last the night.

Hey, I want to come to NiteHike this year! I'm wanting to attend as:

Hikers:

Is this your first time attending NiteHike? Have you never heard of NiteHike before? Welcome! NiteHike is an all night hike through Pacific Spirit Park near UBC. Participants register in self assigned groups of 4-7 youth plus at least two leaders and hike the approximately 18km of trails in the dark and compete in activity stations for points! The hike group with the most amount of points is declared the winner, and has their Group name engraved on the NiteHike trophy for all time! NiteHike usually has around 600 hikers, and 20-22 activity stations, and groups can complete as many or as few stations as they want. Youth from Girl Guides, Scouts Canada, and Boy Scouts of America are welcome to attend, with hikers ranging from ages 8 to 80! Most groups that complete the entire event are around 12-14 years of age, and some groups manage to run the entire trail network to try and finish before midnight!

Hike group online registration will open on March 1st. At this time we need to focus on the core organization of the event and organizing our stations.

Stations:

Station Call Email

Station registration is still open for NiteHike 2024! For more information, including a map of site locations, have a look at the menu to the left. Stations will be assigned on a first come first served basis, with priority given to groups who are:
First: Returning to the same location as last year;
Second: Returning from last year, but moving to a new location; and
Third: New groups running stations for the first time.

ALL stations must register their intentions by March 8th 2024 to give us time to put together the maps and mark sheets

Volunteers for HQ:

If you are interested in helping to organize NiteHike, we are always in need of assistance. Please email nitehike@scouts.ca to see how you can help!

Thank you to everyone who came out to NiteHike 2023! This is a quick post to let you know that we at HeadQuarters survived the night. We will have scores and stats posted here as soon as we can get everything wrapped up and tabulated, so bear with us! Unlike 2022, we've actually already started on 2023 scores!

We had 747 youth hikers (one more than last year!). And 345 adults, which seems an awfully high ratio, so we'll double check it as we complete the scores for this year.

Thank you, and see you next year!

Scores are done and uploaded! Congratulations to 1st Gibsons who finished in first place with a total score of 196.0. In second place was 1st West Heights - Vega, with a total score of 192.5. The top place finisher, adjusted for age, was the 1st Kamloops Scouts (average age 12.4 yrs), with 184.6 Pts after adjustment.

Our most visited station was K & L, with 87 (out of 139 hike groups) having visited each of them.

We will hold the original score sheets until NiteHike 2023 has completed. But don't expect us to every want to look at them again!

Thank you to everyone who came out to NiteHike 2022! This is a quick post to let you know that we at HeadQuarters survived the night. We will have scores and stats posted here as soon as we can get everything wrapped up and tabulated, so bear with us!

This year, we absolutely BLEW away all previous attendance records going back to at LEAST 2004. We had 746 youth hikers and 291 adult hikers.

Badges will be mailed to those who didn't receive them yet as soon as we can get to it.

Thank you, and see you next year!

Hello adventurers!

As it turned out, cancelling NiteHike 2020 on March 12th proved to rather prophetic. We were really worried about the repercussions if we were wrong, but the rest of Scouts Canada, and indeed BC and Canada as a whole, rapidly followed suit. We have seen NOTHING like Covid-19 in living memory, and to proceed with an event the scale of NiteHike would have proven reckless, even if things hadn't been shut down.

We have received a number of inquiries about NiteHike 2021. We are looking to see if we can deliver an online NiteHike, using Zoom or a similar platform. Whether you're a hiker, or a station organizer, we would appreciate your feedback at the following survey please!

NiteHike 2021 Survey

Please fill out the survey by March 25th to help us determine a way forward for NiteHike 2021.

Thank you for your concerns. Be Kind. Be Safe.

It is with extreme disappointment that the organizing team for NiteHike has made the decision to suspend this year's event. There has been much uncertainty in the world over the last couple of weeks with regards to COVID-19. The NiteHike team feels that the actual threat of infection is extremely low and can be worked around by increasing our work around food safety and hand washing protocols at stations. Unfortunately, as of March 12, we are unable to predict whether BC's conditions will improve, stay the same, or worsen.

The NiteHike team has worked to ensure that there are adequate reserves to recover from one year of poor attendance, but our planning has been around weather or storm related events, not factors of public health which could change on short notice. Should we continue to plan for NiteHike 2020, and be forced to cancel past March 12th, it would be extremely difficult to recover from the costs we have to incur before anyone even shows up to register.

We are absolutely committed to returning stronger than ever in 2021, as our event date has already been set as Apr 10th-11th, 2021. We will be using our planning time that would be going into 2020 to enact some technology and operation changes that we have been trying to make for the last couple of years, and just haven't been able to work on.

Further questions can be directed to nitehike@scouts.ca

Thank you to everyone who came out to NiteHike 2018! This is a quick post to let you know that we at HeadQuarters survived the night. We will have scores and stats posted here as soon as we can get everything wrapped up and tabulated, so bear with us! Please take a minute to fill out our followup survey HERE.

We had 443 youth hikers and 177 adult hikers.

Thank you, and see you next year!

Thank you everyone for coming to NiteHike this year! We have a quick survey available here. We had 85 hike groups, making for a total of 423 youth and 170 leaders. We're already at work on the scores, and hope to have them online before the end of April. If you're interested in helping with NiteHike next year, please email us.

Scores are done and uploaded! Congratulations to 11th Seymour who finished in first place with a total score of 448.5. In second place was first CloverRidge, with a total score of 431. The top place finisher, adjusted for age, was the 1st Langley Valley Guides, with an average age of 10.5, and adjusted score of 437.3.

Our most visited station was station O, with 109 (out of 131 hike groups) having visited.

Congratulations everyone! Now that we have this system figured out, we PROMISE it won't take as long this year!

You cannot view your individual score per station (yet), as we learn how to effectively manipulate the data in this new format (MySQL). If you have some expertise in manipulating the data and would like to offer up some expertise, email us at nitehike@scouts.ca .

We will hold the original score sheets until NiteHike 2017 has completed. But don't expect us to every want to look at them again!

We had 687 youth participants this year, along with 256 leaders. We got entirely overwhelmed on the hot dogs, and for that we're truly sorry. We want to make sure that everyone gets hot dogs, but we also need to make sure that we don't end up with 200+ hot dogs left over like we did last year. Scores wont be ready to go up as quick as I wanted, but we'll start working on them very shortly. Thanks everyone!

Finally! I'm sorry it's taken so long. Usually after NiteHike is over, we take a couple weeks off to decompress. However, It so happens that I had just moved AND taken over a business on the Sunshine Coast with my family. With everything going on, including renovating a new space and moving the store, getting the marks done sort of went by the wayside. HOWEVER, you all have been VERY patient with me, and they're finally done! You can download the results here. Excel or OpenOffice are required to open the score sheet.

Congratulations to the Orion Rangers, who took first place with 565 points, as well as the 3rd Seymour Trex, who came in second place with 564 points! Yes, we double checked everything to make sure the numbers were correct. Congratulations also to 3rd Cloverdale, which came in 1st after we corrected for the average age of the group. They also happened to be the YOUNGEST group to complete the hike!

The results for 2013 are now online! Apparently someone (me) forgot to upload the results, then manage to lose the already completed data. A couple groups emailled me last week, bringing it to my attention, and I just spent the weekend rebuilding it. Our overall winner is the 'Power Rangers' with 503 points! The winning group, corrected for age is 10th Coquitlam Scouts, with 488.4 points! You can find the results spreadsheet over on the sidebar, including all sorts of statistics.

If your group has won NiteHike more than 15 years ago, please get in touch with us to make sure your group is on the trophy!