COSTCO carbon fiber hiking poles – $29.95

There is a haunting beauty to such photographs. The freedom of the hills. I have enormous respect also for the early Whakapapa skiers, who might train journey for maybe 4 hours (more?) to National Park station, trek 15-20 kms (more?) to the Chateau, and next morning climb up the Bruce Road and start skiing. Then ski, and return home the next day. Earn your turns!

Also, maybe there is a market for hiking/ski poles, that join to form a Tiak, and can also be used joined as an avalanche probe. When not propping up one’s ‘mid, or (with extenders) serving as cross-bars on a sled…

Thank you pedestrian I appreciate your comment and your contributions here also :)

Hi Roger,
Before the days of trekking poles, i always carried a walking stick, whittled from a branch found on the ground. The best one was made from a piece of pine on the ground on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevadas in California. Did not know then that even the dead wood out there was protected by law.

Can’t imagine fording rushing water, or balancing on precarious outcrops or ledges, without a pole. In those days, we carried 50+ lb. packs, making the support even more necessary. Now, it is weaker limbs that make them necessary, going up, and especially when going down.

The one pole probably saved my life more than once getting down and across fields of sliding shale scree to reach solid ground. The US Forest Service states they are short on money, and abandon or leave unmaintained many of the trails away from the ‘trunk’ trails that are still maintained.

The pole or poles also allow the upper limbs to do more of the work, making things easier on the legs. That is why breaking one on a trek would be a major catastrophe – perhaps not enough to use the PLB to call for help, but probably enough to turn around and bail out if a branch suitable for carving could not be readily found, as is often the case at higher elevations. Having to bail out of a trek is a real bummer, for me anyway. Will do everything to avoid it, especially using a pole.

Now maybe you are going to say you were just horsing around – That’s OK, too.

EDIT:  Photo from Jake D in Ryan’s article on talus & scree:

Ah well, most older walkers in Australia learnt to walk without poles, and continue to do so. There are several reasons:

The first is basic pride: I learnt to walk without a crutch: why should I change now?

The second is the Australia scrub: it makes a pole totally useless, or even an obstruction. If you had one you would have to fold it up and put it away. So why bother getting it out?

Now, there may be special circumstances which benefit from a pole. Walking across a snow field is one; walking down a river bed which is riddled with quicksand is another. Crossing a difficult river may benefit from having a stick, but we leave it on the far bank. More often, Sue and I lock arms together and cross together.

I’ll grant you that old wobbly or injured knees on a steep downhill can benefit from a stick. I understand that.

And of course a third reason is that many Oz walkers are stingey: poles are expensive and I don’t really need one, so why spend all that money? I’ll find a stick if I really need one. Which is not often.

I still remember wondering what that strange clicking noise was one time in France when we were pitching the tent out of sight near a road. It turned out to be a group of Sunday walkers going up the gentle ASPHALT road waving their poles around vigorously. They looked like right idiots.

Bottom line: HYOH, carry poles if you want to. But do NOT tell novices that they must have trekking poles to be walkers, because that just ain’t so.

Cheers
PS: I used to carry a 70 lb pack in my Uni days. That included 50 m of rope for the cliffs. Oh well.

Fear of looking like an idiot is the only thing that keeps me from using a walking stick in town on paved sidewalks.  My ankle won’t take a downhill without pain unless I’m very careful.

Fear of looking like an idiot is the only thing that keeps me from using a walking stick in town on paved sidewalks.
And now … just to be really contrary, I will take the other side.
Which is more important: protecting your injured ankle, or worrying what others might think?

Cheers

Honestly, in town I also have to worry that I would use the stick to hit people who pissed me off.  Plus, even when I walk the whole way home (about 3 miles), there’s only about 1 block steep enough to cause the pain.

The crooked handles are better – you can catch their ankles and trip them up as they react in horror.

Do a John Steed: carry a tightly-furled umbrella. He was brilliant.

Cheers

Re: “Now, there may be special circumstances which benefit from a pole.”
Since I know Roger loves pictures, edited my last post and added one from Jake D appended to Ryan’s article about talus and scree, at: https://backpackinglight.com/techniques-for-talus-jordan/

That is a picture taken in the NH Whites, just below Mt Washington, but pictures taken by others in the western part of the US and also posted after the article and are even more forbidding. Those are not pictures of the scenery off-trail. Those ARE the trails.
They may have been groomed at one time, but loose rock on the summits has a habit of avalanching down to obliterate the high trails. My favorite in Colorado is the stretch of rock on the Never Summer Trail just north of Baker Pass. The first time we trekked this, the trail was buried by fallen boulders on the mountainside. I visited with a local USFS ranger in Walden suggested by a friend, and lo a behold, the next year the boulders had been jacked around so there was a relatively passable mile stretch of rock hopping. What a repair job that must have been, and how grateful we should be to those who do the trail work.

These are not special circumstances, but rather are regularly encountered. True, there are long and enjoyable stretches of high routes that are relatively placid, but one must always be ready for unstable fallen rock and boulders. If there is a trail, the route through it will be far too narrow for locking arms with a companion. I can’t conceive of attempting sections like this without a good trekking pole, much lighter and easier to hold a grip on than a wooden stick. To keep down the racket and marks on the rock, a rubber pole tip is always used, except on ice.

There was an old issue of ‘Wild’ magazine with an article on crocodiles, stating that unlike lazy alligators in North America, they will leap right out of the water, snatch human prey out of the air and feast on them in the drink. Trekking in Oz cannot all be a bed of roses.

Hi Sam
Nice pic, but I have to say that a pole is NOT what I would have in my hands there. If I have a pole in my hands I have to split my attention between where I can safely put my feet and where I can securely place the pole tip. From our own experiences, we go faster and safer without a pole in places like that. For instance:

This was coming off a small peak near Mt Guouogang in the Wild Dogs area here in NSW. A delicate tiptoe with the occasional use of fingertips.

Yes, I do have several sets of CF poles – sent to me for review. And yes, we do sometimes use one or two – especially in snow like here.

But note that this was summer and we were wearing our usual joggers, with no shoe aids at all. Sue had one CF pole and I had one of Steve Evan’s titanium/CF axes – in anticipation!

The little orange flag next to Sue? A course marker for the annual Salomon foot race which took place that day. Mad beggars! Col du Bonhomme with the Refuge looming up.

Cheers

OK, Roger. Now i see that it is a matter of technique. I would never go down that rocky descent shown in the first photo without using the T-pole. Might even have to carry the older Sheltie:

Technique? I guess so – plus good joggers with good soles! Grip is everything.

Cheers

I picked up the elusive and legendary Costco Carbon Fiber Poles for $30 in the Frederick, MD Costco this weekend.