headlamp

It took forever to get this in from Botach (seriously, don’t order ANYTHING but closeout items from them if you need it this year), but they had the best price by a good 20% and were the only place I could find that carries the camo version (the other one is black with big ugly white logos): Petzl Tactikka @ Botach.

The light itself has been upgraded from the unit pictured on the site, and has the Tactikka Plus style ratchet adjustment for tilting the light to the preferred angle. Granted we didn’t come anywhere close to using them for the advertised 110-hour runtime, but they did not fade at all on a 5 hour night hike (actually, the return leg of a 10 hour hike). They are light enough to be comfortable despite running on 3 AAAs, and are adjustable from helmet-size all the way down to thigh size.

Their built-in red filter is kind of a joke, ending up with a bright orange and a lot of white bleed out the sides. It is handy for working on something up close I suppose, though the white light is not terribly overpowering. While I still grab for my Surefire to investigate sounds or search along the side of the trail, for hiking/climbing/running it is the perfect amount of illumination for the path to see where you are going and not white-out your night vision.

In action, tested between 30 and 50 feet (click the image for details):