my wife is a working cowgirl. she day-rides for local ranches, moving cattle throughout the mountains of eastern oregon. some of the work she does happens in the dark and she has been using CPF-quality LED flashlights for the last 8 years. i spoke to her and here's what she said:
she doesn't like helmet/head mounted lights because if she looks at her horse's head, she blinds them. plus she wears cowboy hats and that would make using those lights awkward.
she prefers a very small single-cell light in the 2-20 lumens range.
they are carried and used on a neck strap, usually held with her lips to direct the beam away from the horse's eyes (horses have an extreme field of vision). this also allows her to drop the light when she needs hands for reins/gates/ropes/knife/gun/etc.
she finds AAA lights better than AA lights due to size and weight.
although she has owned some very fancy (read: expensive) flashlights, like the Ion, Millermods Arc, custom Jil and Orb Raw NS, she currently uses cheaper lights so they can be lost or loaned without worry.
her current favorites are the Fenix E01 and the Streamlight Microstream.
the E01 (around $15) is around 8 lumens and has a long runtime (up to 20 hours).
the Mircostream (around $25) is brighter (sometimes too bright at 20 lumens) but is better to find subjects at further distances. additionally it has an easy on/off rear clickie. but runtime is less than 2 hours and is bright enough to damage night vision for rider and horse.
she thinks all the factory Arcs are about fine for single-stage lights, each being between 5-10 lumens, but worries about losing them due to replacement costs ($38-58 including shipping). and other than quality construction, she doesn't think they offer anything over her E01 which has 2-4 times the runtime of any Arc.
she wishes there was a readily available, inexpensive 2-stage light with a Low around 2 lumens (my Fenix LD01 SS-LE has three stages but the Low beam is too bright at around 10 lumens, plus it requires scrolling thru the Medium beam to get to the Low beam... not good). my Millermods R2-WC XRE 2-stage is almost perfect but too expensive for her. the work can be rough and gear can periodically be lost.
in most cases, starlight is enough to navigate a trail so she usually only uses the lights intermittently.
she'd be happy to offer any additional info if requested. email her at:
patti (at) pattihudson.com
