Given Streamlight's general high quality, I would imagine their headlamps would work adequately. "SAR grade" is not really that high a bar. The principal requirement is that they light up reliably when you mash the button.

I keep a small Streamlight LED lamp (an Argo maybe?) loaded up with lithium batteries, stashed in my glove compartment.

I was following a link from ETS once and ended up on an SAR web site for down under; New Zealand I believe. The article noted that their kits have standardized on the LED Lenser H7. I bought one and have been quite pleased.

Mine is 3 AAA, 200 lumens, dimmer switch down to 3 lumens, and a focusing and tilting lamp head.

The current version is the H7.2. Four AAA, 20 to 250 lumens.

http://www.ledlenser.com/880002.html#start=5

From your supplied link, I followed to the HR7.2, which is a rechargeable version, or you can slap in 4 AAAs. Now that is an attractive attribute! Frankly, there are just oodles of very fine headlamps on the market today - quite a refreshing change from the "bad old days."

Thank you for all this information! I didn't expect my inquiry to be so fruitful. Some of the issues you mentioned were unexpected. Now I'm thinking I should probably consult with you on some of the other equipment I'm getting/upgrading. Perhaps in a different thread…

Some of you encouraged me to consider volunteering for SAR. I'm still not sure about it, but you've gotten me to go as far as getting the training for it. Thanks!

Encourage you to volunteer for SAR? Now who would do a thing like that?

REI Outlet has the 2013 model Black Diamond Storm on closeout -- Good lamp, good price. I had the BD Storm on my shortlist so this looked like a good option. I like the 2013 Storm performance numbers more than the 2014, but that may be a function of how the numbers were measured. They've got the same max beam distance (throw), but the older model has better runtime -- go figure. One thing is that the 2013 model is polycarbonate while the 2014 indicates "plastic". Is polycarbonate plastic? Dunno...

Doesn't really matter, I was more interested in the low beam performance so I don't trip over things, I have more than a couple handhelds that can reach out. Both units are rated IPX7 so they can handle water, which goes to reliability in the field.

> Is polycarbonate plastic?

Yes, polycarbonate it is a very high strength plastic.

Yeah, but if the 2014 model were polycarbonate the spec sheet should indicate polycarbonate. With the spec sheet just saying "plastic" my thinking is that the good engineers at BD are cutting manufacturing costs and decided PC was not needed Don't know.

This sentence seemed surprising to me. Is it really preferable to remove a headlamp (which could be mounted to your helmet in some way) multiple times than to use a separate handheld light instead when the situation calls for it? For example, if one were to come across some tracks in the dirt, it seems much faster and more convenient to pull out the handheld light, turn off the headlamp, study the tracks with oblique light from the handheld lamp, and then turn the headlamp back on and be on your way than to be fiddling with the headlamp. Are we just assuming a single headlamp as THE lighting source in this scenario?