Flashlight For Everest Summit Bid

I'm on an Everest team this spring and, am investigating using an LED Flashlight with something like a "Maglite headstrap."

The LED headlamp selection right now is pretty weak and "standard issue" for now is a halogen headlamp with 4 AA lithium batteries in a quick loader.

1. Summit night is ~10 hours long. Can switch batteries if have to during the night, but it needs to be VERY easy and VERY fast.

2. Need cold weather reliability (#1), reasonable size and reasonable output to plod along the mountain with.

Arc seems to be a good place to start given quality demands - any comments from the forum?

Now if I was going up Everest and needed 10 hours of light I would use my old Cyan LS rev1 ( the best LS Arc ever made ) and hook up 2 lithium batteries in parallel in the 2aa holder. That would be quite bright for 10 hours or so. But for a one time trip the Arc LS seems like overkill, if you were going up every day for a few years it would be perfect.

Well, Definitly have to be lithium, I've seen some pretty high quality headlights, from Lupold? I believe. A forgot which member has it, but its pretty pricey. It has a lot of LEDs, and would keep you hands free.

I would say that when going up Everest, no investment in gear would be overkill since you're life depends on everything you carry!

Other than having read the books about it and the fact that Sir Edmund is a cousin several times removed on my mothers side I know little about it

I would also think that an LS would be a great light. Either battery pack, the 2AA with lithium AA's or the cr123 pack would work great in the low temps. The AA's will give longer run time, but you can carry more cr123's for similar weight and volume. I don't believe that changing batteries with either the 123 pack or the AA pack will be difficult, but you'll certainly have to take off your bigger gloves to do it.

I don't know how well the LED lamps will cut through if you get into a snow storm, but they will work great under any other circumstances.

You do understand that to those of us without the mountain climbing bug you're nuts! I wish you success!

Actually, come to think about it, you might be able to work a deal with Peter at arc. I can't think of better PR and advertising than saying that their lights have climbed Everest!!!

Aint that the truth, Dark Star!! Petzl has been involved in mountaineering, caving, and certain professional fields for quite a while. The Duo has 2 or 3 LED modules that go in the non-halogen side.

Actually, what you get depends on whether these are going to be used in the summit attempt/descent, or in the tent.

I would recommend that some members of the expedition, if not everyone, have a CMG Infinity (regular). They can be mounted in a Nite Ize headband, as can the Arc LS 2AA and CMG Reactor. The Reactor may be a better choice for the longer runtime and it is best on Lithium AAs.

Anyways, look at all options, including mods.

Welcome to CPF, where thine insanity, is never a question.

My first concern would be temperature, and not just of the electronics. There are a lot of high coefficient-of-expansion aluminum bodies out there.

Will the battery cover unscrew at those temperatures?
Will a battery carrier that you take out of a "warm" pocket fit in the cold opening in the flashlight?
What if you have to swap batteries in the open while snow is blowing and some gets in the battery compartment?

Talk to the guy who does the flashlight electronics and see where the likely fractures are. A little extra solder might help reliability, and there may be low-temperature solder with which a board can be redone (fractures in solder can be very hard or impossible detect by normal testing).

There are a number of good "modifier" guys on CPF (one did the ARC's electronics). If any of them are interested in the challenge that might be the best way to go. One of them might put an 8 AA battery carrier into a headlamp, current-limited to give 10 hours of light.

I would:

Try to determine how much light output you need., perhaps in units of some other light.
Give yourself time to test the result in a few practice climbs at real temperature.
Ask in the "Homemade and Modified lights" area.

This may be off-the-wall, but I wonder if any non-white LED would be an advantage in white-out conditions?

PS. I'd pay attention to the switch too to make sure it doesn't get stuck from thermal contraction, and that it is shielded from being frozen or iced over by blown snow.

My fear is that if the climbing group goes up with great beam LS2s and they were to lose one, half of the candlepowerforum group would go up Everest to find it. We would do anything for a good LS2 !

Hey, welcome to CPF!
Sounds like something very interesting. Can you share any details of the expedition? Where is base camp going to be? Near the Khumbu icefall?

This is exiting... I've read lots of books about Everest, and one of the most impressive stories was the Rob Hall/Scott Fischer one...

Please keep us updated. (does the expedition have a website?)

About lighting, the "soup-man" was talking about Lupine lights. Very expensive though

Have you ever considered something like the Polar Star by Black Diamond?



It has both LED and halogen lightsources, and also has exellent low-tem specs, because the battery pack can be worn on your body. At $45.- , this looks like a deal to me.
Hope this helps,

Everest 2003,
You indicated you'd like to use a "Maglite" headstrap. Is this like the Jakstrap that holds a AA Minimag? If so, I'd vote for using an Inova X5T LED light. Bright, at least 10 hours runtime in the cold, quick-to-change batteries, waterproof, drop proof, and big enough to handle easily with thick gloves on. Just my $.02.
Kirk

the website still says 'sold out' but it might be worth a try to contact Henry Schneiker at HDS about equipping your group with an ActionLight or two..
http://www.hdssystems.com/

Climbing Everest!

You are going to get some great suggestions here, But I feel a little uncomfortable makeing suggestions that could affect your life!

I am going to say, that, whatever you choose, both in batteries and in light equipment, specifically get written confirmation from BOTH the battery and light manufacturer that their equipment can withstand the extreme conditions of your expedition.

That said, I would recommend a CMG Infinity Ultra with 1 AA Lithium battery around your neck, in addition to whatever else you choose. I would recommend the ARC AAA, as it is lighter, but you will need Lithium Batteries for the extreme cold, and there is no available Lithium AAA battery.

I also know that EVERY OUNCE is important when embarking on an expedition like this, so WEIGHT (pun intended!) your selections carefully!

I was going to recommend the Streamlight 4AA, 7 LED light, with Lithium AA batteries, as it would be a bright light, and give a long run time, and is relatively light, esp with lithiums, and can be seen from a long way away. HOWEVER, Brightnorm "burned out" one of his 4AA lights when constantly running lithium batteries in his light.

(EDIT 4-27-03 - Streamlight has re-designed the 4AA, 7 LED light, so I would still check with them, but it might be light to consider now, but still, verify that Lithium's work with this light)

As streamlight is a top flashlight manufacturer (and is very serious as well), I would say contact them for specifics as to if the light could be modified to use Lithiums and if they would recommend the light for this use.

I thought I had some high end (read very expensive) headlight manufacturers on my bookmarks, when I am not at work, I will dig them up and post them here.

Good luck in your climb, and PLEASE be safe!

Summary of a few "must have" things that members here have recommended.

Lithium batteries - Nothing even comes close to the cold temperature performance of lithum batteries. Plus they are light, and have huge capacity for their size, can give high current output if required and discharges at a relatively flat voltage curve.

LEDs - These form of lighting gets more efficient the colder it is. Yep, more light at lower temperatures, longer life too. Plus you don't have to worry about dropping em, you can use your LED light to hammer on anything you need. They are impact proof. BTW, if you feel like helping us test something, feel free to drop a small LED light (CMG Infinity or ARC AAA) down all the 8 km of the mountain and see if they survive the impact. I think you will have more of a trouble finding them. (Sorry for being off topic here)

Optional: Have a battery pack that's not attached to your light so that you can have the battery pack at your body to warm it, to improve the performnce. Good thing here is if you carry multiple battery packs, you can hot swap it if the cables and connectors are big and fool-proof in less than 3 seconds. Bad thing is the cable might get in the way of your climb. Weigh the pros and cons yourself....

Headlights are helpful because they keep you hands free. Of course if your headlight happens to have a detached battery pack which you carry on your body, you even have the advantage of hot swap, as well as the disadvantage of messy wires.

As much as I love Arc and have supported them quite a bit financially thru the purchase of their products, I would not quite dare recommend an Arc LS for a hike up Everest where in perhaps no other situation is a reliable light more crucial. Although the customer service is great at Arc to take care of any problems encountered, it is self admittently "a work in progress" and "after the fact" would be too late in this case. The technology, regulation etc. is so new that absolute reliability with this product has yet to be obtained and users do report problems with this light. Of course the same could be said for all LED lights to a degree, as they have only been in existence for a few years but I would recommend a simpler, non electronic, non regulated light in this case simply because of a lower probability of failure in a crucial situation. Perhaps an Inova X5 might be a good choice. A set of batteries in this light would get you thru a whole night with ease I would think. Of course in this environment, redundancy and/or backup is crucial so I would never depend on just one light but if you choose other CR123 lithium lights as well, you could carry the same type of batteries and these batteries have a high power vs. size ratio.

Yes, our products have not been suffciently tested in my opinion for this type of mission. Since this very well could affect your life, I do not want to recommend our product. I think the HDS light would be ideal but I know Henry and his situation and he's quite back ordered. He might be able to get you some units in time, you should contact him at [email protected]

This being said, if there was some way to carry one of our lights with you in a back up capacity (not something that your life would count on- if that were possible), I would be delighted. This would provide valuable results.

Peter Gransee
Arc Flashlight

Ha ha--I saw Peter's post and just wandered in to see if he had mentioned anything about the current problems a few people are experiencing with the AAA...

That said:
I know when climbing, esp when climbing Everest, every miligram counts. What about a freelight? I can't think of any reason, off the top of my head, that one would fail. Sure the solar panel is glass but isn't it pretty durrable? Well I'll leave that one open for discussion...

I was also thinking--but see that it has already been recommended--the actionlight.

Just because a light can't make it up Everest doesn't mean it's a bad light. I personally wouldn't take a homebuilt light up there, so you might want to wait until you get home to look into some of those...might want to look into the Arc AAA too when you get home

WOW!!!!!!

Always wanted to do that(climb everest). Probably won't ever get the chance....I hear it is very expensive. So this is probably as close as I will ever get.

I think I would also consider the Inova X5. It is waterproof, very rugged, and uses lithium batteries with a very long run time. It is fairly bright for a LED flashlight. Since it uses lithiums, it is very good for cold weather use.

Just my thoughts..........

Yes, the Action light would be perfect except they are quite back ordered. Henry at HDS is a great guy!

Peter Gransee

Saaby,

" those...might want to look into the Arc AAA too when you get home".

Tsk, tsk, tsk, thought you knew better!
Hasn't your mother told you that you'll get Dalmation Spots from looking into flashlights?

Sasha, hey Sasha, Saaby is looking into lights again!

Perhaps he should be punished by having him make an icon of a smiley looking into a torch and getting dalmation spots. LOL

Hmmm... perhaps I should just keep my trap shut about looking into lights and stay on topic here.

Everest 2003, what a neat trip! Please keep us posted.

Best,
Lighthouse

Well...it's just you know, with the thing--and then the thing and...<sigh>