Chasing Auroras
And seeking beauty in the darkness
I could never be a storm chaser. When the tornado sirens blare—as has become frustratingly common during the Chicago summers—I am huddled indoors, anxiously watching the local meteorologists count down until the danger has passed.
Chasing the northern lights is more my speed. I get to sit on a beach wrapped up in a blanket and look northwards over a lake for hours, while drinking tea out of a travel mug and occasionally tracking the Kp index on an app. The lights will appear or they won’t and either way, I’m not at risk for bodily harm.
Northern Illinois isn’t the ideal place to see aurora borealis displays. The best spots are far north and away from city lights, while I can barely even see the stars when I walk around my neighborhood at night. But at this point in the solar cycle, geomagnetic storms are more likely and that has made 2024 a pretty good year for aurora spotting.
For a few days in early May, my social media feeds were inundated with articles about the possibility of seeing the northern lights further south than typical.1 I’d read similar hype before that didn’t come to anything, so I just shrugged my shoulders. But on Friday, May 10th, a work acquaintance posted a photo of visible aurora from a boat in Lake Michigan, just a little ways off shore from Chicago.
I immediately threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed my car keys, and made my way to Montrose Beach in the hope of catching a glimpse. There were a couple dozen people already gathered, but the clouds soon joined us, quashing any hope of a view. I went home disappointed and stayed up late scrolling through Facebook as friends around the country shared shots of the northern lights taken from their yards.
A text the next morning from a friend in Duluth put me over the edge, so by 10:30am, I had a campsite reserved in the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest for that night. I wanted to say I had at least tried to see the northern lights.
Mauthe Lake had a few things going for it as a viewing location. It’s further north than Chicago, about as far from light pollution as I could get within a reasonable drive, and I’d seen photos online of the aurora over the lake from the night before. Plus, there were still campsites available.2
I arrived at the beach just before sunset—the first to claim a spot on the sand, but only by a few minutes. I brewed up a fresh mug of tea on my backpacking stove and settled into my camp chair with a blanket and a book. Even if the lights hadn’t ultimately shown, it would have been a pretty good way to spend an evening.
As the beach filled up and I struggled to read by the fading light of my headlamp, I switched to eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Those who had glimpsed the aurora the previous night were pontificating about what time to expect the best display and those who hadn’t were anxiously checking the forecast to ensure that the night sky was still supposed to be clear.
The longer we were all on the beach, the more negative the commentary around me became:
“It doesn’t even look like anything unless you look through a camera.”
“Last night was supposed to be the better display anyway.”
“If it isn’t visible by 10:30pm, it won’t happen tonight.”
Slowly, the crowd thinned out.
Just after 11pm, something looked weird in the sky—like the ghost of a rainbow was spreading across the darkness. I didn’t trust my tired eyes, but my phone camera picked up a faint streak of green and confirmed my hopes. Excited chatter quickly spread to everyone still on the sand that we were in luck!
Over the next 45 minutes, the colors intensified before fading back to black and for that brief time, those of us remaining on the shore of Mauthe Lake were all connected by a shared sense of awe. It didn’t matter that the display was less intense than what was probably showing in Alaska or that a camera was needed to discern the full array of color. Those of us who remained on the beach had settled in for a long wait with potentially no payoff, so we were not about to quibble about whether we could have seen more vibrant lights elsewhere.
There are plenty of disappointments in life, but seeing the northern lights just an hour from Milwaukee in any form was pretty miraculous and only made me more enthusiastic about chasing auroras further north in the future. The increased solar activity is supposed to continue into 2025, so maybe I will get lucky again in the next few months. Maybe I will even remember to pack a tripod3 and extra batteries for my headlamp before racing out the door when my app alerts me to a high Kp index.
But mostly I hope I never become disillusioned like those early defectors from the beach—whether I see nothing or a ghostly haze or a full-on explosion of color in the sky, it’s worth spending a night under the stars with a makeshift community of others who are seeking beauty in the darkness.
This ended up being the strongest solar storm since 1989.
The Mauthe Lake campground is also in the delivery range for warm cinnamon rolls. Call the phone number on one of the signs scattered around the area and the next morning a box of homemade cinnamon rolls will be delivered to your campsite. Truly a genius business idea!
Taking photos at night requires a longer exposure time, but the camera cannot move at all or the photos will turn out blurry. I didn’t think to bring along my tripod in May and I couldn’t keep my hands perfectly still, so as a result, all the photos in this essay are rather fuzzy.
Wish I'd been that ambitious.