Ralph has become especially fond of two SureFire flashlights of late: The U2 and the E1L. Both are LED-based lamps, meaning you will never change a bulb in them again.
He carries the diminutive single-battery E1L in his pants pocket with room to spare for his J-frame reload. Rated at 25 lumens, it seems brighter and throws light farther than expected due to its magnifying lens (similar to the X-200A). It's always there and has one hour of full-intensity light, followed by three hours of useful light. It is a very small, lightweight package.
The high-tech U2 seems like it was made for Ralph and those like him. Phoenix has hundreds of miles of desert mountain trails. As an ex-mountain rescue op leader (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office) and mountain climber Ralph likes to keep his legs built up. Much of his hiking is done after work in the crepusculum (twilight – Ralph is fond of Latin) and into the night. Unfortunately, our mountain preserves are also well-populated by rattlesnakes. The sporting ones will rattle at you, but you can't count on it and walking the trails in the dark would certainly be foolhardy. The variable intensity of the U2 allows you to shift to several settings between 2 lumens and 80 lumens with the twist of a ring behind the bezel. Two lumens offers more than 40 hours of runtime and easily lights up a trail to safety identify snakes and ankle-breaking rocks. Twisting the ring to full power gives you a potent 80 lumens of tactical light (a 6P is 65 lumens) to identify and disorient two-legged vipers. Then you can decide whether or not to use your fangs (if you are here reading this we assume you have a set – so to speak).
– webgeek Mike