Hiking

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Facts About Flashlights

Flashlights are a very important piece of hiking kit, well, they are if you’re intending to spend the night camping out on the hiking trail anyway. Even if you are going on a day hike it’s always a good idea to pop a flashlight into your back pack, you never know when you might like to investigate some dark hole or cave, or miss-time your hike and be a little later back than you expected to be . . . “I told you to hike a bit faster but oh no, you would insist on looking at every single tree, flower and bush along the hiking trail – now we’re in serious trouble, good job I packed a flashlight – no you can’t borrow it, it’s mine, follow me . . . ”

Can you believe that this woman made a video to tell us all that the days are shorter in the winter-time? Duh, does she think we didn’t notice? She forgot to tell us that it gets cold too!

Headlamps are very popular these days, they’re the kind of “hands free” version of a flashlight, but there is still a place for a flashlight on a hiking or backpacking trip for those times when you prefer to hold something in your hand. Maybe because . . .

• you’ve heard something scary in the bushes and a big, heavy flashlight can double up as a weapon to give you a sense of added security
• you are sending out signals to your hiking buddies . . . one quick flash followed by two longer flashes means we think we saw a bear . . . followed by a blood-curdling scream means we definitely saw a bear! 
• you want a strong beam of light to really see what you’re doing, I know, we should have set up camp before it got dark but hey, we were thirsty and needed a drink!

On second thoughts, maybe a hiking head lamp would have been better suited to this occasion . . .

3 Key Factors When Selecting a Hiking Flashlight

1. Size and weight of the hiking flashlight. I know that we’ve already said that a big heavy flashlight can be used to make you feel a little more secure on a dark night in the wilderness, but just think about carrying it around in your back pack all day too. Maybe a hiking flashlight which is smaller and lighter with a powerful beam would do the job of lighting just as well (lighting is actually the main function of a flashlight . . . as well as making ghost faces to scare your buddies around the camp fire, but be careful if they have a big heavy hiking flashlight)!
2. How brightly your flashlight shines. This is an important factor, some flashlights have a concentrated beam which really lights up the area like daylight, others are a little more . . . well, subtle and you’re still in danger of tripping over the tent ropes.
3. How long will the batteries last in your hiking flashlight. You see, there ain’t no Walmart or general store in the wilderness where you can simply pop in for another set of batteries . . . those babies are going to have to last one, two, three nights, maybe even more if you’re on a longer back packing trip. A flashlight with flat batteries is no use to you at all . . .

What Lights Up On Your Flashlight

Hiking flashlights, well, all flashlights actually but we’re kinda talking about hiking and back packing here . . . anyway, all hiking flashlights are not created equally. Flashlights have different light sources such as:

• LED Flashlights – Light-emitting diodes, yes, that’s why I said LED, it’s much easier to remember . . . anyway, LED flashlights offer great energy efficiency and are good for using whilst you do chores around the camp and close-up type of stuff . . . reading in your sleeping bag maybe, if you’re the type who can’t sleep without a few pages of Harry Potter . . . even after a full days hiking and a bottle of California red wine!
• Incandescent bulbs – sounds like something you plant in the garden to flower in the springtime . . . but it isn’t that type of bulb, it’s a traditional type of flashlight bulb which can often light up stuff much further in the distance.
• Halogen, Xenon & Krypton bulbs – (do you think they’re what Superman would use?) – burn with a higher intensity than the traditional incandescent bulbs.

LED flashlights are the most popular, and they’re getting more popular all the time with three very good reasons:

• Your flashlight battery will last up to 5 times longer (“up to” remember, don’t come searching for me in your hiking boots if they only last 3 times longer) than a hiking flashlight with incandescent bulbs.
• Incandescent bulbs can give up the ghost in less than 40 hours (I think that’s enough ghost references don’t you . . . it ain’t the ghosts you have to worry about on your hiking trip, it’s the critters). Anyway, we were talking about LED flashlights and they can last up to . . . yes, “up to” an incredible, unsurpassable, fantastical 100,000 hours . . . .woweee!
• LED flashlights don’t have any filament or glass to break, making them tough and rugged, just like us hikers . . . yeah!

He’s got a lot of flashlights hasn’t he, do you think he goes on a lot of overnight hiking and back packing trips . . . or he just collects hiking flashlights!