This is a preview of a member exclusive premium article.

Although most of us don't count it as part of our base weight, a lightweight set of trekking poles can easily shave a half pound or more off your total carry weight when compared to telescoping trekking poles. Backpacking Light's Make Your Own Gear forum group discussed various materials for do-it-yourself poles last year, so we tested these ideas out and present our findings here. Two different shaft materials were tested: extruded carbon kite rods and carbon golf shafts. These were combined with commercially available replacement Leki trekking pole tips and foam fishing pole fore grips. Along with the instructions for making your own, I discuss the merits of each shaft material. This is a very simple do-it-yourself project.

ARTICLE OUTLINE

  • Introduction
    • Specifications for carbon kite rod and foam grips
    • Specifications for carbon golf shafts rod and foam grips:
  • Sourcing materials
  • Building your poles
  • Performance

# WORDS: 1680
# PHOTOS: 16
# TABLES: 3

--- End of free preview ---
Member Exclusive

A Premium or Unlimited Membership* is required to view the rest of this article.

MembershipLogin

* A Basic Membership is required to view Member Q&A events