SF bay area night hike, this friday, june 15...

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Sorry for the last minute schedule….
bigchellis, myself and a couple other members are meeting up for a night hike this friday evening.

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/sweeney.html

We’ll meet around 7:00-7:30, at the trail head at the end of Sneath lane.
Its mainly dry fire road and some paved pathways too.

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/sweeney.html

Anyone else?

thanks!!

2

Sounds like fun! Sure would love to get something like this going around my neck of the woods. The Appalachian Trail would be a great place to start.

3

Have fun on the hike. This is probably the first time I have ever wished I lived in Kalifornia.

4

so we can expect a “strange lights” news story on Saturday right? lol…have fun

5

If you head South and I head North on the AT we would run into each other in about a month or two. :smiley: :bigsmile:

6

LOL!! :bigsmile:

7

I'll wait for you two in the middle. :D

8

I wish I lived there just to join in on the hike. Now I'm thinking about doing my own night hike around Hawaii Volcanoes Nat'l. Park. It's one of my favorite day hike destinations.

9

For anyone considering doing this hike, it’s not an easy hike. The first 100 yards are relatively flat then it starts to climb. It’s about two miles to the top and it never gets any less than about a 5% grade with some areas getting to about 12%. It’s a 500 foot vertical climb so it’s not a walk in the park. The views from the top are pretty nice, though.

10

Hi Folks,

I will have small throwers and a big Flood light…See you guys there.

bigC

11

A big flood light? I wonder why that sounds familiar? LOL!

If I go I’ll have small floody lights and a big thrower :stuck_out_tongue:

12

That was fun. My legs are sore from the climb.

13

So how did the fatmax spotlight do?

14

It was definitely the throwiest light we had there, out throwing my HD2010 (T6, driven at 3.5A with 7135 driver) by a noticeable amount. The stanley spot beam is smaller, tighter and brighter and thus reaches farther out.

Its a good trail-hike, spot-use kind of light. I was able to hand carry it just as comfortably as the HD2010, spotting things off in the distance and comparing one light against each other. Its not a very good constant-on trail light though. Headlamps and floodier designs are better for that. I settled into the second half of the hike with a zebralight headlamp and Fenix MC10 clipped to my belt, these two provided ground lighting and close range flood. I ended up hand carrying the HD1020 and Stanley. I ran the HD2010 in Medium-hi mode to reach out medium range distances and the stanley for spotting stuff way out.

Even with only a ~65% battery charge the fatmax was out-throwing any other light we had. Its important to note however that none of us had any (what I call) pencil-beam spot kind of XRE throwers. This was definitely the most flood-centric collection I have seen at a meet/hike.
Bigchelis had a smaller diameter aspheric with an EZ900, but even that did not have the tight-beam focus of a larger diameter aspheric.

15

My favorite light of the ones I brought though was the TR-J12 with 2x26650… hands down. Such a great smooth-flooding, general purpose, constant-ON trail light. I used it periodically for about 40 minutes on its various modes. I lent it to bigchelis for about half an hour and he put it through its paces. He ran it full-tilt 2200 bulb lumens for ~30-40 minutes, as we explored the top crest of a mountain ridge. It did get hot to the touch… but not alarmingly hot or painfully hot to the touch.

After all that, The cell voltage started to sag, and/or the heat build up started to take its tole however (after all that time) and we both thought it was starting to dim a little. So I ran it on low for a while and holstered it for the night, focusing on the throwers I had with me.

Thumbs UP for a great holster design too btw. I have NEVER holster carried a light before on a hike… but this was a real win-win for me. The stanley “fat bastard” took up most of the space in my camelbak, so belt carry was the only way. I almost completely forgot I had it stowed over my left hip. Its heavy and kind of unobtrusively reminds you its there… but it was never a hinderance at all. Even the weight I don’t think really slowed me down much. Maybe if it were hotter I would have felt its presence more, but it was SO cold for the first hour of the hike… I welcomed any additional body heat I could generate.

It was a great hike overall, big thanks to PCC, BC and gswitter (CPFer)