yowzer
Enlightened
For years, I used a Petzl Tikka+ for backpacking. Worked great for setting up a tent, cooking dinner, and other general in-camp stuff, but it didn't have enough throw to make me happy with it for night time hikes, especially not on rough trails or going cross-country. Luckily, I didn't do much of that sort of thing. Last year, I started getting involved with search and rescue, and quickly realized that I needed a new headlamp -- something brighter, with more light output and more throw.
After looking around at various options, I'd settled on the Mammut TX1, which had just gotten a good review in Backpacker and has some neat features -- in particular, being able to run both the close up flood 5mm LEDs and the 1-watt spot light at once, something I still haven't seen another combo style headlamp support.
However, when I went to the local REI to get one, they were sold out, but the new Black Diamond Icons with a Cree were on sale for something like $45. I snapped one up, and haven't been disappointed with it over 6 months of use. The Cree produces a huge amount of light, I'm still on the first set of batteries though it's getting noticeably dimmer and I'm starting to think it's time to, if not actually change them, have a spare set of batteries handy. The 4 5mm flood LEDs are the only bad part -- they're quite bluish, and there's a lot of interference patterns on the edge of the spill area -- both things that are more of an issue on a white wall than out on a trail. Light wise, they're enough to deal with most trails. The cree comes on for rough trails, when I'm in front of a group, need to light up something off in the distance, or just need a ton of light. (It worked great for lighting up a snowy hill I was glissading down at 2 am, for example.)
I've seen people here complain about the Icon's construction and lack of complete water proofing, but I haven't had any durability issues, and it's been through lots of rain without any problem.
The Icon, as much as I like it, is too big and heavy for me to want to take on normal trips, though, and the experience of using the big LED along with doing more night hikes on my own made me want to replace the Tikka+ with a new lamp with a 1-watt LED -- something with some reach, but also lots of flood. After looking at a bunch -- the 2008 BD Spot, PT EOS (The old version), Tikka XP, Mammut TXlite, and some non-name-brand headlamps, I picked up a TXlite, which seemed to me to be the best value, weight, battery time and light output wise.
I've used it on a couple of weekend trips and night hikes now, uses varying from in-camp stuff, walking down trails of all sorts, and bushwhacking cross country. I can count the number of times I've needed more light than what the low setting gives on the fingers of one hand -- it hasn't disappointed in the light output category. (I'm not sure what brand of LED is in it, but it the light has a white tint and there's enough of it. The LED itself is a big yellow square mounted on a hexagonal base that has wires coming off the top and bottom.)
The UI has good and bad points: One click to turn on to low (Yay!), a second to switch to medium, a third to off (I like the style where a click after a few seconds will go straight to off, like BD and Petzl headlamps). It has a flash mode, but you have to hold down the button for a few seconds when it's turned off to activate that -- much better than always having to toggle through it with the constant light modes. High is turned on by holding down the button while it's already on low or medium. A bit awkward, but it's not a level I'm needing to use very often, at least not with fairly fresh batteries. In a few months, maybe... but then it's just as easy to put in rechargeables.
It's not waterproof, just 'stormproof', with tight fitting plastic parts, no o-rings. Same as the Icon and the old Tikka+, having it out in the rain hasn't resulted in any problems.
Summary: The BD Icon and Mammut TXlite are both nice bright headlamps that I'm quite happy with using.
After looking around at various options, I'd settled on the Mammut TX1, which had just gotten a good review in Backpacker and has some neat features -- in particular, being able to run both the close up flood 5mm LEDs and the 1-watt spot light at once, something I still haven't seen another combo style headlamp support.
However, when I went to the local REI to get one, they were sold out, but the new Black Diamond Icons with a Cree were on sale for something like $45. I snapped one up, and haven't been disappointed with it over 6 months of use. The Cree produces a huge amount of light, I'm still on the first set of batteries though it's getting noticeably dimmer and I'm starting to think it's time to, if not actually change them, have a spare set of batteries handy. The 4 5mm flood LEDs are the only bad part -- they're quite bluish, and there's a lot of interference patterns on the edge of the spill area -- both things that are more of an issue on a white wall than out on a trail. Light wise, they're enough to deal with most trails. The cree comes on for rough trails, when I'm in front of a group, need to light up something off in the distance, or just need a ton of light. (It worked great for lighting up a snowy hill I was glissading down at 2 am, for example.)
I've seen people here complain about the Icon's construction and lack of complete water proofing, but I haven't had any durability issues, and it's been through lots of rain without any problem.
The Icon, as much as I like it, is too big and heavy for me to want to take on normal trips, though, and the experience of using the big LED along with doing more night hikes on my own made me want to replace the Tikka+ with a new lamp with a 1-watt LED -- something with some reach, but also lots of flood. After looking at a bunch -- the 2008 BD Spot, PT EOS (The old version), Tikka XP, Mammut TXlite, and some non-name-brand headlamps, I picked up a TXlite, which seemed to me to be the best value, weight, battery time and light output wise.
I've used it on a couple of weekend trips and night hikes now, uses varying from in-camp stuff, walking down trails of all sorts, and bushwhacking cross country. I can count the number of times I've needed more light than what the low setting gives on the fingers of one hand -- it hasn't disappointed in the light output category. (I'm not sure what brand of LED is in it, but it the light has a white tint and there's enough of it. The LED itself is a big yellow square mounted on a hexagonal base that has wires coming off the top and bottom.)
The UI has good and bad points: One click to turn on to low (Yay!), a second to switch to medium, a third to off (I like the style where a click after a few seconds will go straight to off, like BD and Petzl headlamps). It has a flash mode, but you have to hold down the button for a few seconds when it's turned off to activate that -- much better than always having to toggle through it with the constant light modes. High is turned on by holding down the button while it's already on low or medium. A bit awkward, but it's not a level I'm needing to use very often, at least not with fairly fresh batteries. In a few months, maybe... but then it's just as easy to put in rechargeables.
It's not waterproof, just 'stormproof', with tight fitting plastic parts, no o-rings. Same as the Icon and the old Tikka+, having it out in the rain hasn't resulted in any problems.
Summary: The BD Icon and Mammut TXlite are both nice bright headlamps that I'm quite happy with using.
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