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Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

If you have to bail out of a camp site at 3am I can only think of two reasons. You have made a poor choice of where to camp given, that you should have taken in to account the possibility of bad weather conditions after checking the forecast. Or that you have not chosen the correct equipment for the conditions in which you intended to camp. Either way the choice of torch would be the last of my worries.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

I have to agree with Mr Grumpy. In all my years of wild camping, I've been doing it from the age of 14 which wasn't yesterday, I've never had to move camp during the night. If you do have to move camp during the night you were pitched in the wrong place.

Ian C.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

Ian and Grumpy you need to write how to wild camp for the next edition of Chris Townsends Backpackers Handbook. After all he has had to bail or face his tent being torn apart.

Wrong is when you found the weather was worse than forecast, not your choice at the time.

While at it give some well-known Challengers here a tip or two. After all I have seen first hand their tents flattened. Mind you they have only done 8 or more Challengers, a couple WW Coast to Coast and the like.

If we think weather forecast are a thing of absolute accuracy then I am amazed. But it’s about risk some times. We have what appears, and is hopefully a good forecast and camp high only to find the weather is far worse than that forecast. Pesky things forecast.

I also recall another Legend you can give a tip or two to. He I recall his writing about a stormy night hoping his Akto would make it through till dawn when he could bail out. He had sat in his tent for a long time in all his clothing and waterproofs ready to bail hoping his tent would not fold. I wonder if the wind had been worse and he had to bail in the dark would he had appreciated a decent torch to help find his way off the hill in the dark? I would.

But I suppose if you only ever want to pitch in the valleys, nice and sheltered your fine most times.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

Anybody who's out in the wilds often enough will have to bail at some point. I have twice and re-pitched at other times. It's just a fact of life. Weather forecasts and bomber equipment might help but will never eliminate that risk. As Martin says a decent torch is worth every gram - and I learn't the hard way ;-)

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

I have never had to use a bright torch on the Challenge (YET).
But I always carry one.
A Zebralight C30 (200 lumens), 60g with battery and headband elastic, so it can be carried or used as a headtorch and runs off a single CR123 photo battery.
Also useful on a bike (NOT as useful as my 3200 lumens bike light).
Now, that does bring down aircraft.

I have used it outside of the Challenge though, when I am pitching on days it is dark from 16.00 to 06.00.
Useful when you want to see beyond your feet for a pee.

I have been lucky in not needing to bail on any pitches.
Well, apart from a flash flood in Wales in 1976.
But I did have a rear hoop snap on my Warmlite 2R (a bloody strong tent), on Ingleborough a couple of years ago.

Luckily at 5.00am after a very very windy night.
I think there may have been a slight fatigue fault in the pole after much use.
Since then I have customised the tent with a couple of extra guys at the back. (C/O Sean at Oookworks)

The point being, this was good equipment, in an acceptable location, with some extreme sudden gusts, and a pole failure that probably was just metal fatigue. The poles on a Warmlite are aircraft quality aluminium, pre-formed.
It takes some serious ***t to break them.

Had it broken at 2.30am, I would have needed my head torch, I am quite sure.
It was wet and windy and BLOOMIN DARK

So I am with Martin on this.
As unlikely as you are to need a powerful head torch, at a mere 60g, I am going to take it. Just in case ***T happens again.

Well, that's my £10 worth.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

I have only once had a tent collapse on me and I felt absolutely no need to bail out at all and I did not need a head torch.

I was halfway up Helvellyn forty years ago in a new-fangled single skin tent (a Blacks of Greenock "Yukon") which was not very storm proof as it happens. Supper had been a chocolate fudge cake, a can of pilchards and half a bottle of whisky. It was as well that it was windy as the environment inside the tent was pretty rank.

When the tent blew down (severalteen times, I seem to recall) it was no great deal. There *was* a lot of flapping, but mostly from Wilky, whose tent it was. I sent him outside into the hurricane in his underpants to re-peg the thing.

I'm not sure if he had a torch or not.


Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

alan.sloman
I sent him outside into the hurricane in his underpants to re-peg the thing.
I'm not sure if he had a torch or not.


That clarifies a lot about the Invermallie incident, and the Spean Bridge revelations.

As I said, I haven't needed a torch, but I will still carry one.
And to be honest 60g is a lot less weight than a Wilky even a dry one!

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

For what would you be needing an extra torch.If you've
bedded down with kit everywhere maybe!.
Tent in trouble ? . Leave your night kit on.Your
day kit "should" be waiting tidy for morning.Put that
complete in the sac.What else is there?.Stove and
pan waiting for breakfast. Put those in the sac complete.
Put your outer gear on and boots, sit and wait for
daylight. Why leave your "shelter"however bad it
is outside, its safer inside.It won't blow away with you in it.
It may if you climb out in the rain/wind/snow.
So the extra"£60"just in case could be put to better
use. What else would you take extra "just in case"?.
Iv'e had a few collapsed tents in the last seventy years
"but never bailed out in the night in a storm. Cheers.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

I agree with Humphrey that the LED Lensers are fantastic torches but the L1 is a bit of overkill (unless you want the ability to fry small animals from a distance -could be handy) so why not scale down the cost and weight but still get an epic torch? @m@z0n are currently offering the LED Lenser P3 (runs off a single AAA but is still astonishingly bright and focusable) for £8.39 including free delivery, leaving plenty of spare cash for single malted beverages...

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

Ah yes, I suspect I may have been Martin's akto worrier. I was camped in a very deep valley between Sanquhar and Wanlockhead - chosen cos the valley was running in the opposite direction to the wind, and, therefore as calm as your Aunty Mary when she got her first librium prescription.
Bloody wind changed dinnit and started hurricaning up the valley/wind tunnel at about two am. Plus pancake-sized snowflakes wot I didn;t want to go out in. The akto flattened a few times but as soon as it came light I was off to Sanquhar station (damply) for the train back to Pieland.
It may have been a poor selection of camping spot. But we all makes mistakes innit? Dim Dwff Torchio!

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

Yes, the P3 lenser is effective and a lot cheaper than yer man's model. I don't need to see 150 metres when I get up in the middle of the night, I just like to see the environs of my feet.

Re: Excellent light-weight LED torch

I really don't want to see my feet AT ALL . . .

And I use a torch often - where I live there are no streetlights, no pavements, and some very large fields, woods, thickets together with the River Tweed. If one of my dogs (usually Gazza) takes a notion to gnash off after an enticing scent I need to be able to see the little butter. In and immediately around the tent I use one of those cute little Petzls.