Has anyone tried one of these yet?

http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/headlamp/tikka2

I kind of played around with one in REI but I'd specifically like to know if the red light is bright enough. It didn't seem that bright in the store but the lights made it difficult to tell.

Hey Jason,
On a recent trip the light was bright enough for the following night tasks:

Cooking dinner
Map reading
Camp chores
Hanging bear bags (With the occasional switch to regular low mode when looking at the bag high in the tree)

It was not however, bright enough to descend an unmaintained mountain trail at night. The red LED is a pretty focused beam, FYI...So it's bright at what you shine it at but doesn't cover a whole lot of territory.

OK, Aaron, thanks. That's good feedback. I would probably only use the red for simple camp chores as you described.

Jason,

I know you're a very experienced backpacker and I respect that. Howsomever... I don't think you may be aware of the constant problems PETZL headlamps have had with the circuitry burning up with the use of lithium batteries.

For a modern headlamp to have that problem is, IMHO, just bad design (or penny-pinching design). I'd look at Black Diamond or, my favorite, Princeton Tec for headlamps with a red light option. Cabela's also sells several versatile headlamps that are of excellent quality.

Eric

Edited by Danepacker on 09/20/2009 14:01:50 MDT.

Hey Eric,
The old Petzl headlamps were never meant to use lithium batteries, so of course they malfunctioned if you tried to use them. The new line they just released has several headlamps that are compatible with lithium batteries, though.

Yes, I saw that on the website as a new feature and that's one of the reasons I'm interested in it. Also, I like that it has both red and white LEDs.