In London, it was about the planets, but in El Salvador it was always about the stars. Growing up living between the two, I have so many fond memories of the night’s sky. Dad, obsessed with scientific education, always encouraged us to tinker with his telescope, and we would vie for our moment to see bright things in the dark.

In El Salvador, the night is such a huge part of everyone’s life, but in London you have to be cleverer to catch your glimpses. My dad taught me and my siblings to look for larger bodies in the city’s night sky – the craters on the moon were some of the first things I studied through his telescope. Then there was the time that the International Space Station flew over London. We headed to the rooftop with duvets and pillows as it traced its path over our hot chocolates.

To be honest, my childhood connection with the night’s sky has never grown up. Aged 20, I’m still wired by the recent memory of spotting the Milky Way whilst camping beside Scotland’s Loch Lomond. But somewhere I’d never been at night, until this particular hike, was Snowdonia National Park – one of the darkest places remaining in our country’s south.

Meeting six strangers for a night-time hike is a funny feeling. In a warm café we prepare to share the familiar ritual of nightfall in a totally unfamiliar way. We plan our route towards Tryfan around a wooden table at the Alpine Coffee Shop in Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, before heading out. It’s still light now, but we’re loaded with snacks, food, and stoves, ready for when the day extinguishes. Now we wait for the night to catch fire.

Taking mine outside, I sit by the water to catch the sunset as the clouds spill over the mountains. Despite the wind biting at my fingers, I’m able to lose myself to this picture in front of me. It’s just like the one I’d draw as a child when thinking up a perfect landscape – two ridges marking the horizon, with the sun setting between them. There is a town in the distance, but it’s too small to feel anywhere near. I watch day turn to dusk, and dusk turn to night. It’s rare to be in one place, and to be still – to see these three different times of day. I watch how the environment changes around me. We lose the light’s oranges and gain a purplish blue that bakes to black. Soon the stars start to pierce through.

After moonrise, we wait for the stars to firmly find their place in the new night before we study them. We huddle in the tent to keep warm and ponder how we passed time when we were younger. Despite all having been raised in diverse ways and places, we start coming up with the same games – memory games that rely on the intimacy of sitting in a circle, nuggets from our childhoods that have the power to bring a group of shivering adults together. After hours of laughter that feel like only 20 minutes or so, we emerge from the tent and are swallowed in darkness. The sky is posing brightly for us.

Every now and then, it’s great when a childhood curiosity does some growing up. Now in my early twenties, I’m training to be an aerospace engineer, and as I stare out to the Big Dipper tonight, the first constellation I ever learned, I lose myself in the sky that I want to spend my life studying. As my eyes flit from star to star, I notice the shapes I learned long ago, but mostly I feel an infinite awe. No amount of study will ever chase that away.

Looking at this sky, I also get a familiar sense that I’m not alone. I don’t see my family in El Salvador that often. But in darkness like this, I remember that we all share the same night’s sky. As a kid my mum would always tell me that some of the stars are family members who’ve passed, looking over us. I stand, feeling at home, whilst also looking into the greatest unknown that exists. To be comforted and exhilarated at the same time, for me, is real serenity.

As the sky fills up, I feel my memory logging this view as something important to recall. I’m grateful for this inner camera – it’s soon time to pull our eyes back down to earth, pack our kit away, and don our head torches. The same path on the walk back feels very different. I realise that on the way up I had the luxury of peripheral vision; now everything is a soupy black. Slowly, we all find our rhythm and ease into the darkness and the silence as we walk. It’s a loud silence, full of feeling, thoughts, and emotions, but with the quiet space to absorb them.

Eventually we arrive at the glow of the Rocks Hostel, and our eyesight is restored. After freshening up, we gather in the kitchen, pop a couple of pizzas in the oven, and share some beers. We stay up through the early hours of the morning laughing and chatting away, bonding over Dobble, Scrabble, Game of 5s, and we even see in a birthday at midnight! I think we’re all enjoying that feeling of finding our tribe on what began, for everyone, as a solo adventure with strangers. Even better, in this dark corner of Wales, tonight we’ve seen the stars at their most uninterrupted.

Story by Catarina Vaughan
Written by Megan Brownrigg
Photography by Eilir Davies-Hughes
Produced in partnership with Sidetracked