Quote:
Originally Posted by Winopt
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I currently carry two light sources. The head light is LED and allows your hand to be free. I keep the batteries out of the light, but taped to the strap to assure battery freshness. The smaller flashlight is tiny. In the extreme cold it will have limited value, but taking up no space makes it worthwhile.
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I found out the hard way last fall that headlamp batteries ought to be removed when the light is not in use. We did think to get the headlamps ready for use while there still was daylight, and that's when I found out my mistake. I had to rely on a backup hand-held flashlight, plus light from a fellow hiker's headlamp for the rest of the way down in the dark. When I got the headlamp home, it took some disassembly and cleaning to remove corrosion and a resoldering of a wire to restore it to use.
Besides having a second light source to use in an emergency when the primary light fails, it also becomes very useful when the batteries in the primary go and you'd otherwise be fumbling in the dark to replace them. How many of us could locate spare batteries and replace the old ones in the dark, solely by feel? I did practice that once, but I'm not sure I'd want to have to do so out in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Presumably we wouldn't be out in the wild alone, but as pointed out, a backup light takes up so little space and weighs next to nothing that having one along seems prudent.