![A Berec headlamp used by Martin Mushkin from the mid-1950s until 1980. [Photo] Michelle Hoffman](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/alp57-tool-users-1-930x620.jpg)
In this Tool Users story from Alpinist 57, Paula Wright shines a light on the evolution of the headlamp. Since some climbers were still carrying flashlights in their mouths as late as the early 1970s, it seems that we have only recently emerged into a more illuminated age.
![The Alpine Luddites White Light/White Heat backpack with crampons and ice tools strapped to the outside. [Photo] Paula Wright](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/alpine-luddites-white-light-pack-1-1-930x620.jpg)
Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright puts the Alpine Luddites White Light/White Heat backpack to the test, awarding it four stars. The company takes an a la carte approach to the gear it sells so that minimalists will have only the accessories they want, such as the foam layer that comes in a customizable thickness and doubles as a “bivy pad.”
![Two climbers at Chasm Lake at the base of Longs Peak. [Photo] Jeff Long](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/jeff-long-the-story-behind-the-glass-mountain-930x620.jpg)
An interview with climber and New York Times best-selling author Jeff Long on his story “The Glass Mountain,” published in Alpinist 54.
Chris Van Leuven’s story “Going Home,” which first appeared on the cover of Alpinist 51, has been selected for inclusion in this year’s The Best American Sports Writing anthology.
In September 1833, Charles Darwin set out for the four peaks of the Sierra de la Ventana alone, lured by local murmurs of caves and forests and veins of silver and gold. The small range was barely visible from the port of Bahia Blanca, a notch in the north-central Argentine coast. There, the H.M.S. Beagle remained docked with Captain Fitzroy, who had invited Darwin aboard the ship to circumnavigate the globe as a scientist.
Before his theory of evolution made him famous, Charles Darwin was an enthusiastic, if somewhat picky, mountaineer. Paula Wright considers the significance of his most disappointing ascents.
![Adam Stack on the hike in to the base of Mt. Hooker (12,504'). [Photo] Tommy Caldwell](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/adam-hiking-to-base-930x620.jpg)