In thee 1950's I began caving and was introduced to carbide lamps, then the standard for caving, also frequently used in night hiking.

they are superb gadgets, providing dependable, bright light, and they make it easy to start a fire. They were far more dependable than the lights of that era (pre-Maglite).

The big drawback to carbide lamps is that the fuel easily degrades when exposed to even tiny bits of moisture. They also aren't appropriate around plane wrecks or similar situations. Ask me how I know.

i still have a lamp kicking around somewhere, but the carbide fuel has long ago turned to powder...

I have a later model AA Zebralight (53?), which is fairly small, and quite versatile. With a couple of additional batteries, it will run a looong time. I also admire their 18650 lights, fairly light and bright, and ultra dependable, though not cheap.

As you can see, I valuable dependability uber alles. II really sucks to lack light when you need it.
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Geezer in Chief