Aluminum vs carbon trekking poles

> I am looking for reasons people pick aluminum or carbon.
Weight.

Cheers

Trekking poles take a real beating on the rocky terrain around here (NH). I think carbon fiber might be prone to breakage.

I have beat the heck out of my Black Diamond Ergo Trails. They just keep on ticking, although I may break down and replace the carbon steel tips with the replacement pair of had for a while.

LT4s are not only carbon fiber, they are rather thin, so they are more delicate than many other carbon fiber poles.

At the same thickness, aluminum and CF are similar in strength. When that strength is overpowered, CF poles will break but aluminum poles will bend, leaving them (if you're lucky) somewhat usable in the short term.

But really, that's a minor factor. The reasons most people pick between the two are what you said: weight and price. Costco's $30 CF poles give you the best of both worlds.

No matter which trekking pole material you buy, you know that the part that seems to get broken the most is about the bottom six inches.

When I bought aluminum cross country ski poles, I applied some plastic spiral wrap to the bottom six inches. This wrap is the tough stuff that is sometimes used to bundle cables and wires. Anyway, that tough wrap keeps the bottom from getting kicked and nicked. Those poles are now almost twenty years old, so something must be protecting them.

–B.G.–

The locus gear poles are much better then the gossamer gear ones. The locking mechanisms work much better and they are more sturdy. I just used them for 5 days in wind river range.

My experience with similar aluminum versus carbon-fiber poles from the same manufacturer (Black Diamond) is that the carbon-fiber poles transmit less shock to my arms than the aluminum. The reduction in shock plus the reduced weight make the cost differential justifiable for me.

I use one hiking pole, obviously not in the traditional way – I use it to mitigate impact on descents, for stability at stream crossings, and most critically when off trail on steep loose surfaces. Sudden breakage would be bad, and I'm not convinced that Carbon Fiber is a great material for a hiking pole. Poles get frequent hard knocks – in Carbon Fiber that can lead to cracks and sudden catastrophic failure. If I used CF poles, I would inspect them frequently – but cracks in CF are sometimes hard to see. I use a Fizan Compact Aluminum pole, no stronger than CF for the weight, but my hope is that any damage will tend to be more visible than damage to CF. I've never had one fail, so I don't know if this ultralight Al would tend to bend, or would just break catastrophically like CF – I suspect the latter. Fizan Compacts are fairly cheap, even shipped from Europe, so I replace them frequently.