Spotlights for nightime cragging.

My partners and I occasionally climb in the evening after work at a local crag with a short approach. We use headlamps to climb with but I have been wondering about the utility of a handheld (or on a stand) spotlight. Does anyone have experience with this? Does it help to be illuminated from below or is the climber blinded when looking at their feet ? Any recomendations ?

Shadows can be a real bitch.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too. But any worse than the ones created by the headlamp?

If you have it directly below you anything that sticks out of the rock will cast a shadow above it. When you look down it will be shining in your eyes. If you are high up on a route and someone is holding a flashlight standing back from the crag the shadow of your body will be right where you are looking. Obviously situation dependent and the light can help immensely if used correctly.

Headlamp is great because you are looking directly at the rock.

I've done a LOT of night climbing on rock and ice. I've used spotlights and other lighting but have found a good headlamp to be the best option. Other lighting from below can make weird shadows or just not help at all. It can be handy to have some sort of lantern type light at the base to just see your stuff, but that's about it.

Are you climbing routes or are you bouldering?

For bouldering I like having two propane lanterns, one on each side of the line and away from the wall. This provides a sense of where you are and provides a bit of ambient light. For the more specific needs I use an LED headlamp on spot mode.

Mostly top roping 40-60 foot routes.
Using headlamps of varying quality right now. Sound like investing in a great head lamp is the ticket. Thanks.

Try this one:

Get an 18650 headlamp of ~1000 lms

The fenix HL60R is a good one being USB rechargeable, i own 2 of the previous HL55s

Most of the time the lamp will be used around 50-150 lms .... Occasionally for route finding youll bump it to 400-1000 lms

Very important is to have a good downwards tilt as on lower angle climbs youll be tilting it down so the light shines on your footholds (slab)

Upward tilt is also useful for belayers to shine the light above

For night climbing you should have a more floody headlamp ... An easy trick with the fenix mentioned above is to out a bit of scotch tape on the lens to diffuse the light

The real reason you want a 18650 lamp is not just because of the lumens ... But because of the 18650 battery capacity

Basically you get the same energy as 4xAA bats at 1/3 to 1/2 the weight

For example on 150 lm the fenix will run for ~10 hours .... Compare that to any a petzl tikka xp which youll get 2-3 hours at around the same lm

;)