By Jeffrey Smith, Western Zone Patroller (sibco@execulink.com)
Many patrollers across the country have literally been in the dark on calls and this month’s cool tool can help in a variety of dim situations. This tool is especially useful for members who patrol after the sun is below the horizon.
LED head lamp
Although many resorts having ample lighting on their property during night skiing and riding operating hours, an LED head lamp can come in handy in more ways than you might think. This small tool is great to add to your arsenal of gadgets that come in useful in a variety of ways.
Possible uses for an LED head lamp
- Looking for persons in out-of-bounds areas – An LED head lamp with high lumens can be used like a traditional flashlight. It’s not uncommon to need to search from the edge of the piste for persons who may have strayed from a marked run.
- Helping to mark accident scenes in the dark – In addition to crossing your skis and poles on scene, you can also turn on a head lamp and loop it over the top of your crossed skis. While this might seem insignificant, the bright light (even better if your head lamp has a flashing setting), can help ensure that skiers and riders up hill, have a better chance of seeing a scene is marked, if you might be short on other patrollers to assist in scene management or traffic control.
- Use it as an arm band – Make yourself even easier to spot by wearing the head lamp around your bicep, overtop of your patrol jacket. This draws more attention to your person and makes you quite visible. And, you can do the same for your night bike riding or running training sessions on city streets or sidewalks.
What to consider in an LED head lamp
You can easily find a variety of LED head lamps at stores like MEC, Canadian Tire, even Amazon, but here are some things to consider when choosing an LED head lamp:
- Lumens – the higher the lumens noted on the product, the brighter the light output will be. Generally, the more lumens the more expensive.
- One strap or two – some head lamps come with an additional arm strap to use interchangeably depending on what you’re using your lamp for.
- Rechargeable with USB cable or batteries – there are a variety of options now with some LED head lamps being easily rechargeable with a cable like your other personal electronic devices and some products require AA or AAA batteries.
- Different light modes – most LED head lamps have multiple modes such as white-light and red-light outputs, different flashing speed modes, and even low, medium or high output to help conserve battery life.
Lee Valley Tools offers an excellent LED lamp that comes with two different elastic strap options, outputs either white or red light, multiple flash and light strength modes, and is rechargeable via USB. Check it out here.
This post is also available in: French