Back from 10 days in the Utah back country

Hi folks,

Just got back from Utah last night. It was a great trip and a real torture test for my lights. My friend Adam and I did a lot of hiking and fishing in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful, fun, and really really dark. It was also really really sandy, cold, wet and otherwise inhospitable. I wasn't sure how the lights would hold up in the sand but I was careful to keep the threads clean and had no problems at all.

My light with a Waterworks ULA reel and Sage SLT rod

The light in the photo is a special prototype. I'll be introducing a titanium pocket clip option with my next production run. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, it's still under development.

Since we were going to be out for 10 days I decided to pick up a Brunton Solaris solar panel. It did a fantastic job of keeping my two lights fully charged and ready for action. The first three days were overcast and incredibly dark at night. The undergrowth was so thick there was no way you could walk more than 10 feet from camp without a light. The Solaris is only 4 ounces and folds up nicely. If this is something you'd like me to carry in the store, please comment at the bottom of this post! The output is USB only, which is perfect for this application.

The Brunton Solaris is USB compatible...handy!

The undergrowth was incredibly thick and made it hard to take good beam shots at any distance and my point and shoot camera didn't help much either. It seems silly for me to say (because it's self promotional) but these lights are massively bright. Every time I'd fire up a light my friend Adam would utter choice words that are not family friendly but testified to his nightly astonishment.

Here is a shot of the cliff above our camp. I'm probably 50 feet from the base and I estimate the top of the cliff is about 100 feet high. The MC18-B was also easily capable of lighting up the entire cliff face across the canyon from our camp that was probably 500 feet away and nearly 300 feet high...my camera couldn't capture it though.

The MC18-B on high power

I added a few scenic shots for your viewing pleasure:

Mountain lion tracks the size of my palm

The view from a small hill. The canyon walls are so steep you can't access higher ground in most places. 

An old tree during our hike into the Escalante River valley

We managed to catch quite a few trout during the daylight hours. My hand gesture here is referring to the one that just got away. 

This one did not get away...until I let him go :)