Night caches - light recommendation?

[+Shawna426]

Winter is going to be here sooner than I'd like, and I'm looking at the night caches in my area, all of which recommend a "good" light to see the reflective markings, but don't specify much beyond that (or saying that a typical headlamp isn't likely to work).  Any recommendations for specific models or specs?

[+Viajero Perdido]

"Typical" headlamps are pretty good nowadays.  Any decent LED model should have a few hundred lumens, which is plenty.

 

Headlamps are great for lighting up fire tacks etc, because those things reflect directly back at the light source.  So you want the light source close to your eyeballs.  Hand-holding a flashlight down at the waist is noticeably less effective.

[+cerberus1]

Like Viajero Perdido, we prefer headlamps.  We use surefire now, but any quality headlamp is fine.

Coast has a couple with big buttons (good with gloves). 

The other 2/3rds did a really long night walk in the woods, with a headlamp she picked up at Home Depot last minute (they have Coast too...).

The downside is if you have a person who doesn't understand that you don't look at people in the dark.  Blinds everybody...

 - Those people could use a handheld.  We like surefire then too (G2s), but our first five years used mini mags.

[+Shawna426]

This is awesome--thank you!  I have a pretty nice headlamp with an external battery pack (goes on the back, cord between powers the light) that has a lot of settings including a pretty focused one that seems pretty bright to me!  And yes, I do know not to look directly at people while wearing it.  I was wearing it this weekend while working at a horse event (on the red setting) and no one flinched or said anything to me about it.  :-) The cache descriptions had me thinking you had to have a pretty specialized light for the fire tacks to work, but I guess they just meant "don't use your kid's licensed Disney flashlight with three-year-old batteries."