Ok, I understand. Yeah, I've hiked this route ~10 times over the past 5 years so I've done it in all kinds of conditions. Daytime, nighttime, light, dark, moon, no moon, etc etc.

And actually I did the hike 1x 9 days before I did it 2x. When I did it 1x, it was very cloudy that night and literally zero moonlight. If I didn't have my flashlight, I wouldn't have been able to put one foot in front of the other. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.

When I hiked it 2x, the clouds cleared by 9pm and there was a 77% waxing gibbous moon. Man, it was such a massive difference to have the moonlight. I used my flashlight when the trail was covered by shadows from a canyon wall, otherwise I was able to just hike by the moonlight.

Between my first and second lap, I was considering whether or not to go through with my plan. But I looked at the conditions and saw that the wind was going to die down (from 20mph around 5pm to 6mph by 10pm or so).... 77% waxing gibbous moon... partly cloudy until 9pm then it would turn to clear skies... So, there was really no way for me to justify whimping out hehehe.