Torches

For a long time I found Petzl headlamps as irritating as red BMWs. Nice, expensive, owned by chops. But that was in the days of halogen bulbs that consumed a pair of batteries in a couple of hours. Then along came LED lamps and changed the night into slightly-bluish day. Now I own two Petzls including a tiny one that seems to run on a watch battery but is still as bright as all heck.

They're still not cheap though. I have a bit of a problem with expensive torces in that they're the most losable item of camping equipment, and I've lost a couple of nice ones in my time, so I don't think it's rational to spend a fortune on them.

For caving, apart from the headlamp, I take one of those cheap plastic torches you get from Clicks (it's worked for years, so why change it). But in general, cheap torches always break at the least convenient time. So I use the cheap torch and don't mind if it gets scratched, but I carry a better torch as a spare...

In moving this post from its old home to this one, I had to delete a whole lot about halogen bulbs, taking spare batteries, twisting the head of the torch to focus the beam, and maglites, which I compared to being as exciting as wearing a Nike swoosh, i.e. not at all. But as I said before, all that has changed since LED lights came along. So I'll consign that rant to the wayback machine.