Used KL1 & KL4 for Hiking Mt. Shasta, great combo!

I just got back from hiking Mt. Shasta in Northern California (I grew up there). We hiked it all in one day, and that means starting at 1am and that means bringing FLASHLIGHTS!!! I brought along my L4 w/ McE2s for flood, and my E2e w/ a KL1 for some distance illumination.

There are many spots on the mountain, once you are above the treeline, where it is hard to discern which way to go while in the dark, since you are in the snow and there is no defined path. I found the combination of flood and throw to be very invaluable. I was using the L4 for general illuniation of my immediate surroundings, and the KL1 was abundantly usefull for scanning way out in front, to help figure out which way we needed to be heading.

I can't help but think that if I hadn't had the KL1, we would have had to do some backtracking more than once as a result of having chosen the wrong route.

This adventure was my first personal experience of having substantially benefited from the right lights for the right jobs. I can't think of the mess things would have been if I had taken only my headlamp, like the wife (heck, my friend didn't even bring a light!).

They all make fun of me in jest, for having so many flashlights, but up on that mountain at 3am in the freezing darkness, they were full of comments like: "hey, where are those fancy flashlights of yours, so we can figure out where the heck we're supposed to go"

From now on, when I go anywhere for any length of time, I will always be bringing more than one light. A flooder, a spot , and someting w/ runtime.

I summited Mt. Shasta in a single day also back in 2003. I had my E2e for route finding. What a long day it was. Started at 1am also. Beautiful views from the top. Next time I'm going to camp out at Lake Helen instead of making a single day push from Bunny Flat.

It's nice to know that L4 and KL1 answered your outdoor applications since I have it both also. I only know Mt. Shasta from my small CRKT Mt. Shasta model. Good story bro. Cheers.

Frids

Hi,

Thanks for the info. It confirms my thoughts; although I had not tried it yet
(what you did). Always good to have info you can use. Love hiking and camping myself. Still live in Ca? Gordon

Wow!

You did Shasta in one day?! Thats intense. Did you do the "Garbage bag slide" back down? How many batteries did you go through? Your friend not bringing a light is insane.

Not to hijack your thread but I had a near disaster by not taking the right light. It was back in 1993, I hiked to the top of Mount Whitney. Well to make a long story short we made camp somewhere around 12,000'. My partner came down with pnuemonia and her lungs started filling up with fluids. So we break camp and try to hike down to under 10,000' using a Minimag sometime after midnight. I for the life of me could not find the trailhead. A mountain climber saw our distress and showed us the way down. We eventually reached an altitude where my friend stopped "gurgling." She was hospitalized for 1 week when we got her home.

I will always hike with a headlamp and a good medium range thrower!

Great thread SCblur!

Cheers to the adventurer in all of us!

Thanks kelmo!

We did slide down, that's my favorite part. It makes all the pain worthwhile knowing what you have to look forward to. As for batteries, I had two AW 17670 cells that I went through on the L4, and I never needed to change the KL1, although I had 4 spares with me just in case.

Pathlight, I still live in Ca. I came down to SoCal for college with the intention of leaving when I graduated............

Then I met a girl. You know the rest.

Very cool. I have a place on the north side of the mountain. I skin up my skis for the ascent and have a nice ride down! It's been quite a while. Maybe I'll do it again now. Thanks for sharing.