Carbon trekking poles under stress in a pyramid style shelter

Sounds like a physics problem to me. I use aluminium pacer poles with my shangrila 3 which do not show any signs of bending. My suspicion is that in a Hex the force is vertically down on the top of the pole and thus provides a greater bend to the poles. Whereas on a tarp the force (possibly less) comes from the ridge line as well as the side pull outs and is not directly downwards.

I will be interested to hear other viewpoints on this.

Mike… I used the TiGoat poles in similar situations, but extended toward their maximum length there is a real danger of the upper part of the lower pole splintering if put under load. This happened on the Sublite Sil test I did (see photos in the new BPL article). Although the poles held up, one of the shafts developed several cracks about 15cm long at the end of the interior pole.

John,
Can you provide a link to that article?

Thanks.

Greg… The photos were in my original posting of "Sublite in the Snow", but are also in Roger Caffin's article today, "Pitching a Tent in the Snow". You'll see the extreme flex that the TiGoat poles were under with over a foot of snow on the Sublite.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/pitching_tent_snow

Hi Mike,

I've used Leki and Komperdell 3-section carbon poles, linked using the Black Diamond gizmo, to support my Hex 2 with no issues.

There's carbon and there's carbon, and it may be that the TiGoat poles aren't designed with adequate lateral stiffness for the task. The Lekis and Komperdells definitely are.

Cheers,

Rick

A related question is what method of linking two poles is best? Tip to tip or handle to handle with straps? Tip to tip with a sleeve?

Although I was expecting that handle to handle would be better, the large grips on mine caused a fairly large offset from the centerline of one pole to the other, resulting in non-linear loading. Tip-to-tip with nylon cord wrapped in a self-tightening arrangement seemed to work quite well- the offset between pole centerlines was only the diameter of the smallest section.

Tip-to-tip also eliminates the need for a reinforced grommet at the tent peak.

On my Shangri-La 3 I use pacer poles with a CF pole insert (you can see it at Pacer Poles and Shangri-La 3 ) this provides a rigid pole for the tent.

Thanks guys.
I'll probably stick to the alum poles if i'm using the Hex 3. Johns experience with his TiGoat poles is enough for me. I want peace of mind in the unpredictable Scottish weather. I'll try them again with my DuoMid when that arrives.
I use the Black Diamond pole connector with the poles, tip to tip.