Night Splitboarding Tips

Dec 16

In preparation for Slaydies Splitboard Nights with Dani, there are two items we thought might help ensure you have a safe, and fun night out on the hill. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide to all head lamp options, or lens and goggle choices. It’s meant to give you a start and help make an informed choice. Lets dive in…

Headlamp options:

When kitting yourself out for your night mission, lighting is a critical piece. You will want to break your excursion into two parts. The first is the ascent, and the second, descent. On the ascent you won’t need maximum output / visibility / brightness from your head lamp, but you will want to make sure you can see what’s ahead, and also make sure that you can be seen by mountain operations who may be out grooming, or snow makers flying by on snowmobiles. Either-way a headlamp makes sure they can see you as well as wearing reflective or bright clothing.

Ascent:

There are a number of head lamps that might help you out when skinning up the trail. On the ascent any head lamp will work fine. We do recommend one that has adjustable brightness, and red light capability. Red light does not impact your eyes’ ability to adjust to changing light. You can toggle it off and on and you don’t need time to let your eyes re-adjust. Red light also allows mountain ops (groomers and snowmobiles) to see you but not get blinded by a bright light when you look in their direction. After your eyes adjust to the dark, it’ll give you some visibility and keep you from blinding your touring partner. Below we have pictured a Black Diamond ReVolt. It’s a micro-usb rechargeable head lamp that outputs 350 lumens at max brightness.

The ReVolt uses a Black Diamond rechargeable Li-ion battery. What we like about it is you can throw a few extra AAA batteries in your pack should the cold suck the energy out of this lamp, you’ll have a backup. It recharges via micro-usb, and has a led status indicator on the side so you know how much charge is left.

This is a great headlamp to use on the skin up, but again there are a number of options to choose from. Some of those even have external battery packs, and can give you a one and done solution without the need to carry two head lamps.

Descent:

Alright, we’ve reached the top now what? Don’t put your head lamp away quite yet. You’ll want to keep it out while you take your skins off and get ready to ride. Below we have a Light & Motion Trail 1000. It outputs 1000 lumens, has a micro-usb rechargeable Li-Ion battery, is water proof, and has a few mounting options.

*Light & Motion GoPro attachment with GoPro mount*

Here is the ReVolt in comparison to the Light & Motion. While visibility is okay with the ReVolt, it is significantly increased with the Light & Motion. You’re able to see further, with greater clarity, as well as have the light cast a wider field of view.

When you’re looking at lamps for the descent, we strongly encourage you to pick lights that output as close to or at least 800 lumens. You could make the ReVolt or something similar work, however you’re going to find you will have greater visibility and feel more confident on the way down with something a bit brighter. With the Light & Motion, you can mount this to a GoPro mount and attach it to your helmet when you’re cruising down the mountain. Sometimes we like to have two Light & Motion lights on, with one in our hand and a second mounted to our helmet. The helmet mount gives you a top down beam and can help eliminate some shadows, while having one in your hand lets you point it wherever you’d like for greater forward visibility.

There are some great brands out there kicking our excellent lighting products. From Petzel, Light & Motion, NiteRider, and Black Diamond to name a few.

Lens choice:

You’re probably going to want to leave your bright sunny day, mirror tinted black out lenses at home when you head out on a night mission. Most goggle manufacturers will include a high and low visibility lens when you purchase a set of goggles.

Most high visibility lenses will have a low VLT or Variable Light Transmission percentage, or the percentage of visible light allowed through a lens. These can be as low as 9% in some instances for those really bright days, or high of 84% for clear lenses. The lower the number the less light will flow in through the lens.

The low visibility lens will be your best option. If you can and your goggle manufacturer makes a clear lens we recommend snagging one of those so you don’t have to purchase a second set of frames. An orange or slightly colored tinted lens can help add some contrast at night and in some cases improve visibility.

The Anon M4 shown in the image here, gives you a wide field of view. You can quickly swap out lenses thanks to their quick change magnetic lens system, and each lens comes with a hard lens case that you can keep in your car or pack without having to worry about scratching or crushing your lenses. The M4’s have quite a few lens and frame choices, but having a clear lens in your kit will make a huge difference when splitboarding at night.

One final note, SplitboardVT has no affiliation with any of these brands. These are just what we use, and have found to be a solid solution for our splitboarding adventures. We do encourage you to do your own research, and if you have questions feel free to drop us a line at splitboardvermont@gmail.com

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