By: Kyler Roush
Whether you’re dawn patrolling up Mt. Superior or climbing at your favorite crags until it’s too dark to see the rock, this headlamp will be your new best friend. Out of the numerous headlamps that I have used through the years, the Black Diamond Icon is by far my favorite. In fact, I own 2 of these gems!
The Black Diamond Icon features 7 different light settings between two different modes. The center high-beam has 3 brightness settings, and the outer 4 LEDs also have 3 brightness settings. The 7th light setting is the one we never want to use but love to have it. The outer 4 LEDs have a strobe feature for rescue scenarios. In addition to many different light settings, the Icon is a very bright headlamp at 100 lumens.
All that lighting power runs off 3 AA batteries or an NRG rechargeable battery pack. You also never need to worry about bringing extra sets of batteries with you on short trips either. At its brightest setting, the Icon will last you about 145 hours and have a 100m range of visibility.
Last winter I used the Black Diamond Icon during the “12 Hours of Snowbird” 7pm-7am endurance ski race benefitting the Utah Avalanche Center. While everyone was gearing up, I was noticing the abundance of much more expensive headlamps with battery packs so large you would have thought they were going caving! Once on the slopes I really got to appreciate the power that such a small lamp provided me.
 Some other nice features of the Black Diamond Icon gives you are:
-Large On/Off/Settings button that can be used with gloves
-Battery indicator light (Green/Orange/Red)
-Water resistant construction
-Fits around helmets with ease
You can pick one up from Black Diamond’s Website on sale for about $52.