I never realized the value of even a small amount of reflective material until we were trying to find a primitive campsite "just off the trail" when coming back to camp one night. When we set up the tent earlier in the day, it was clearly visible from the trail. "You can't miss it".

Well, we took a little walk after supper, looking for a stream that we knew was nearby to fill up the water bottles and the coffee pot for the next morning. We left before dark, and found the stream. It was nice, and we were sitting talking, soaking our feet in the stream, listening to the burbling, and time got away. Yup, we had to find camp again in the dark. My old backpacking tent, unfortunately, doesn't have reflective material, like my larger one does.. We found our way back to the trail, and could have sworn we were at the right place where we went off trail with the tent, in fact, over the course of an hour, we were certain that 3 places were the right place... (Note to self, mark where you go off the trail next time.) We each did have flashlights in our pockets, but, back then, they were probably just AA maglights or something similar, not much throw. Our "real" flashlights were in camp! We could not see anything very far off the trail at all, funny how night changes things.

Eventually, the thing that got us back in camp was a little reflective logo on an EMS stuff sack that we were using as a food bag that was about 10' off the ground hanging from a tree. My buddy say what he first thought was a firefly.

That episode was back in college, and many moons have passed since then. My gear, much more modern now, typically has something pretty bright attached, orange paracord pulls, things like that during day, and a few swatches of reflective stuff for night. Seems like new gear comes with reflective trim anyway now. The reflective lanyards sound good, I have a couple things with reflective zipper pulls. I wonder how durable the little strands of reflective material will be in such a heavily used thing as a zipper pull. Time will tell. Still, I always remember how that "firefly" guided us home.