Blindasabat
Flashlight Enthusiast
I went on a camping trip last weekend which was a bit of a class on backpacking as well. An instructor took us out on a night hike Saturday to demonstrate some night time hiking and navigation techniques. All this intended to be with lights OFF! I was flashaholically well prepared on this camping trip having brought: Jil Intelli, Photon Freedom Max, Photon X-Light Micro, P1D CE with Leef McClicky body, and one of my faves, my Milky L1 head - E1 body - McE2S two-stage tailcap frankenlight, LRI Proton, and of course my SV1H modded PT EOS with 15 degree optic. We were hiking around a lake we camped by in the NE lower peninsula of Michigan, in the Hoist Lakes walking trails area.
We started with all lights off, navigating by stars, learning to feel the trail under us to stay on it, listen for sounds to guide us, and see the lake from a distance by the lack of trees in that area in the distance. Maintaining light discipline to also maintain night vision. Me feeling like I had an itchy trigger finger, kept the ever flexible Proton in my hand. No lights until about three quarters of the way around we lost the trail and began to walk away from the lake. So the instructor turned on his headlight to see where we were. Eventually, we were all assisting in finding the trail we missed, and of course, my P1D and MilkyL1 blew away everyone else's lights. When the leader would walk off the trail with his headlight, he would say "shine that light over here" to assist his headlight. I never even used hi on the P1D, just medium, and it could light up an entire area to find the stubbornly hidden trail. I have a mild diffuser on my P1D for a nice spread beam. Of course, this killed all of our night vision, so we relied even more heavily on our other senses to guide us when we found the right trail and it was lights out again to hike the last part of the trail.
Fun hike, and a nice demo of new generation LEDs.
There was one guy with an Arc AAA clipped to the brim of his hat (with a red filter he made himself), and when I asked if that was an Arc, he was impressed I recognized it. He asked how I knew that. "Well, there's this place on the web..."
We started with all lights off, navigating by stars, learning to feel the trail under us to stay on it, listen for sounds to guide us, and see the lake from a distance by the lack of trees in that area in the distance. Maintaining light discipline to also maintain night vision. Me feeling like I had an itchy trigger finger, kept the ever flexible Proton in my hand. No lights until about three quarters of the way around we lost the trail and began to walk away from the lake. So the instructor turned on his headlight to see where we were. Eventually, we were all assisting in finding the trail we missed, and of course, my P1D and MilkyL1 blew away everyone else's lights. When the leader would walk off the trail with his headlight, he would say "shine that light over here" to assist his headlight. I never even used hi on the P1D, just medium, and it could light up an entire area to find the stubbornly hidden trail. I have a mild diffuser on my P1D for a nice spread beam. Of course, this killed all of our night vision, so we relied even more heavily on our other senses to guide us when we found the right trail and it was lights out again to hike the last part of the trail.
Fun hike, and a nice demo of new generation LEDs.
There was one guy with an Arc AAA clipped to the brim of his hat (with a red filter he made himself), and when I asked if that was an Arc, he was impressed I recognized it. He asked how I knew that. "Well, there's this place on the web..."
