Petzl NAO Reactive Headlamp

Picture yourself Sasquatch hunting at night. It's dark, your headlamp is throwing out a respectable 40 lumens of light illuminating the path ahead of you. Then you look down to your recent MAD Magazine to see which spy has the upper hand this time. The moment you look down the light hits the black and white pages and is rebounded back in your face, temporarily blinding you. Then you look ahead of you to avoid hitting a tree or some other object protruding from the Earth. You look back to the page because you are so enthralled with the plot, then back up. Your retinas are moving as wildly as Napoleon Dynamite on a half dozen Jägerbombs. They try to keep up with the changing light. Then...oh crap you stub your toe on a root, tumble ass over wineskin into the brambles. If this is your regular Friday night please next time video tape it and send it to me, and secondly get a NOA headlight from Petzl.

It may look like one of those headset braces that awkward shy girl wore in forth grade, but you need some serious room to hold everything this light contains.There is the lithium ion battery, two high output LED lights, a light sensor, and some
kind of microchip manage all the different settings you can establish through your computer.


My friend Mike lives off the grid in a cool little cabin on top of hill with a stunning view. He relies mostly on battery operated lighting devices and I believe has somewhat of an addiction to flashlights. The most profound thing anyone has ever said about artificial lights came from Mike. He says "Do you know what is going to happen tonight...it's going to get dark". So for the $175 US that this light will retail for you can kick darkness right in the junk.

While current headlamps top out at around 50 lumens and a distance of 35metres this little buggar can crank out a whopping 355 lumens and a distance of 108 metres. That's enough to make out things you may not want to see on a dark night in the woods. Whether it is a hungry cougar(both kinds) or your uncle Larry strolling down to the lake for a midnight skinny dip.

The best part about this headlamp is the Reactive technology. If you are looking at your map trying to figure out where your dumbass friend took a wrong turn the light will dim down to an appropriate level. Then as soon as you lift your head to look back to the trail it increases the light output. All this can be adjusted prior to your trip using a free downloadable program on your computer. You can use preset settings for such activities like Mountaineering or trail running, or make your own setting for whatever you may be doing.

Now before you head down to your local gear shop to throw down your money, I have some bad news. It is not available until July 2012. Until then you will just have to settle with planning all the ways you can use this light on your next adventure.


Jeremy


outdooradventuregearhead@gmail.com