Snow Peak Lighting: Torches, Lanterns and Lamps for the Outdoors

This review comes from Scott Johns, an adventure cinematographer, mountain biker and snowboarder living in Incline Village on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. When Scott’s not creating beautiful imagery for video, he’s out ripping singletrack or shredding big lines in his backyard that we call the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Find more of Scott’s work at shredbums.com.

Snow Peak has rad, compact lighting setups for everything under the sun–or stars, as it were. As we’re quickly heading into camping, fishing, backpacking and spelunking season, it seems like a good idea to do a short wrap-up of these products–complete with cheesy puns–to help expedite the decision-making process. You can get all of these awesome products at Tahoe Mountain Sports, your one-stop-shop in Tahoe for top-performing outdoor equipment.

Holy Hozuki

Snow Peak’s Hozuki LED Candle Lantern and Mini Hozuki Lantern are a good place to start because they are ridiculously versatile. Both feature a warm, yellow light with high, low and manual dim settings for better backcountry ambiance, as well as an adjustable, candle-like flicker mode. Move it quickly and it will even go out! Both models are also equipped with compressible, removable silicone lampshades for easy packing and cleaning. The Hozuki Lantern features a hook and cord for hanging anywhere and the Mini’s hook is a stretchy rubber loop, fixed on one end, with a magnet on the other for easily securing to straps on your pack, tent or anything else you can come up with. The Mini Hozuki even comes in a variety of colors to match your kit.

Not Your Average Tulip

The Tulip LED Lantern is less of a backpacking lantern and more of a do-almost-anything-else lantern. Use it as a desk lamp at home, illuminate a broader area with it pointed straight up, while preparing dinner or playing cards on a car camping trip, for example, or hang it in the tent to get your Walden on before bed. The Snow Peak Tulip’s gravity sensor will know how you have it set up and focus the beam accordingly. It’s snake-like, adjustable neck ensures you’ll always get light where you need it. Output is 250 lumens, running on three D batteries or powered through it’s USB port.

Snow Miner Headlamp/Lantern Combo

Need a headlamp and a lantern, but don’t want to lug around the extra weight–or spend the extra money? Snow Peak has you covered. The Snow Miner Headlamp is where it’s at. High, low, strobe and dim modes, 110 Lumens and press the silicone dome in to create a focused beam on the fly. The included, unobtrusive hook on the headband instantly converts your headlamp to a lantern.

Mola Headlamp

This puppy is new for 2014 and Snow Peak has really stepped up the headlamp tech game with this one. The Snow Pea Mola features a built-in counterweight to automatically adjust the angle of its LED to your line of sight. That’s a headlamp first. This feature, of course, can also be turned off and on, with the push of a dedicated button, to match your needs. It’s so user-friendly, a low-power light even blinks at you when the batteries need to be replaced.

Lapel Torch

Fly fishing is simply more fly with the Snow Peak Lapel Torch. A tight light only where you need it: directly in front of you, on your hands, rod and fishing vest. Sixty lumens for up to 140 hours in a 1.4-ounce package, with a magnetic clip for quick, easy and secure placement. The Lapel Torch is also great for car camping, an evening stroll or changing a flat in the dark; the possibilities are endless!

If you skipped over any of that, here’s a quick summary: Need a highly versatile lantern? Go with the Hozuki or Hozuki Mini. A desk-lamp that you can take car camping? Tulip LED Lantern. Headlamp that doubles as a lantern? Snow Miner. Super-tech, new headlamp that auto-adjusts to your line of sight? Mola. And if you just need a lightweight, compact light that attaches to your shirt so you can see what’s happening directly in front of you, Snow Peak has the Lapel Torch. More specifics about each of these great Snow Peak products can be found by clicking the links above. Happy Trails!