I once hiked with two Poles, a Check, and a mad Albanian.
I once hiked with two Poles, a Check, and a mad Albanian.
If you find yourself in a fair fight; your tactics suck.
Ok thats the post of thread, and I will now never buy twist poles even if we don't have any type of big cat here, just in case.
This thread has been interesting reading, many "expert opinions" both for and against. Really you will only find out if they are for you by trying them. I use them for all the reasons mentioned including holding up my duplex. Here are some more reasons.
Down here they also come in handy for checking the other side of logs before stepping over them. Had a lowland copperhead strike my pole a couple of years ago, doing just that. (5th or 6th most venomous snake here).
Knocking down the web with of a 4" golden orb spider, just love them, not! crawling on my face in the morning.
Holding back all the friendly bushes and vines we have here, especially in the rainforest, like Wait-a-while vine and Gympie bush. (thorns and stinging)
Helping you run across the top of the water when the advice to cross above the rapids, and therefore no crocodiles (according to all the experts), doesn't prove correct.
I'll try to describe this maneuver, meeting a boar sprinting down the trail in thick bush and and using the poles to propel yourself up and over it, to a 2 point landing beyond the boar.
Attaching your umbrella to a pole to provide shade, when sitting in the desert.
That's just some other uses I've found for them.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." Plato
To answer the original question, yes I really need trekking poles.
I'd estimate that once each day hiking on the AT, they have prevented me from landing on the ground from a slip, trip, or ankle roll. Also the occasional sudden shift of gravity that sometimes occurs when fatigue sets in is handily set right again by a quick jab of trekking pole.
The reasons I first tried them: spider web clearing here in FL, and my hands would swell after hiking a while. I was afraid my rotator cuff injury would disallow their use, but it hasn't caused any recurrence at all.
...and lighter tent options are available to trekking pole users.
Giant Golden Orb Weavers spiders and gypsy moth caterpillars dropping down inside your shirt, yippee.
Wake up drowsy. Knock the palmetto bugs gathered out of the trail runners. Squeeze those fire ant pustules. Pack up. Head out with crusted up eyelids. Suddenly remember you're in Florida so you look down to avoid coral and rattlesnakes. Than bam, caught in a huge orb weaver spider web that entraps you like subtle cloud of sticky cotton candy threads.
That old thick yellow web is tough.
Had my daughter on back of 4 wheeler in woods once when she was about 10.
Ran thru a web on a trail accidentally
Long story short, daughter ended up with a huge golden orb weaver on her (we call them bannana spiders)
She jumped off the moving bike screaming, she lost touch with reality for a few seconds, scared the heck outa me
SueJhiker - like you being North of 50 - I do find my poles help with balance and stability. This along with the added benefit of helping the knees both up and down hills, and assisting in general going uphill - sort of a 2nd pair of legs - does as Muddy said make poles beneficial.
Furlough
Last edited by Furlough; 12-02-2016 at 15:09. Reason: stupidity
"Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen." Louis L’Amour
No shame. No fear. No remorse. No sympathy. No time for your jawjackin. Go into the back country unprepared and die. Go into the back country unprepared and require a rescue for your living or dead body and you put others lives at risk. Advocate going into the back country unprepared, and you put others lives at risk. Why not argue against seat belts? Condoms? Helmets? Or, anything else you know zero about in practice.
Kris Fowler-Sherpa.jpg Unprepared. Missing. Assumed dead. Enough said.
Actually I base this on the missing hiker post on this website's homepage tool. What is repugnant is that dilettantes like yourself have a forum to lead others to their discomfiture or, to their doom. Re read this thread. I am both respectful to this boy, and his grieving family. I manage to do so without name calling too asshat. Check myself? Don't come out to our wilderness and die because you have no idea what you are doing - it really ruins it for those of us who work to keep our **** together. Please and thank you.
http://hubpages.com/sports/Whats-Kil...mericas-Hikers
PLEASE: Read this article
This article is about unprepared hikers dying, and scoffing at, or minimizing hiking's inherent risks. My view is that a hiker without trekking poles is less prepared than a hiker with them. Want to go less prepared then the next guy into a wilderness - go! There's a reason why everyone else is holding a pair of poles. If I were on a boat and everyone else had a life preserver on I'd wonder: are my reading comprehension scores high enough?
The problem with your argument, Pilgrim, is that trekking poles, while generally useful, really aren't on the essentials list. They'd be way down on the list of priorities for survival. To argue that point is folly. Thousands of thru hikes were done without them. They were a rarity among summer hikers until about fifteen, twenty years ago.
The 1990 "Philosopher's Guiide" has an eight page equipment checklist, and another twenty pages on trail ethics and general trail wisdom ("Sapientia Callis.") Poles aren't mentioned in any of that.
You don't need boots, tents, sleeping bags, a stove, or for that matter a pack either really. In theory you can go barefoot and naked into the woods with a fanny pack on - like my boy "Coppertone". The question is: why would you want to? Poles are not necessary, but they sure do help. Last word I swear it. Thanks for all of the stimulating dialogue!
The problem with Pilgrim's argument(besides spouting false crap and invoking the name of a missing PCT hiker) is that he is trying to sell the belief that hiking/trekking poles are an essential piece of safety gear. That to hike without them is reckless/careless/foolish. That to hike without them means your aren't prepared properly for a foray into the wilderness on the AT, at least...
He can't realize the foolishness in his belief. You can't reason with him. I'd like to point out that no real mountaineer(unless ski mountaineering) carries hiking poles while climbing, and I've never seen them used while hiking to the climb, so how much of a safety necessity are they? The answer is: They are not. In fact, as I pointed out earlier, if you wear your hiking poles with the straps on you risk far greater injury than if you didn't use hiking poles at all. Also, even without straps, it is my honest opinion that poles can cause falls or create havoc and injury during a fall. They are an AID to those who desire or NEED them. Those who don't desire nor NEED them are not committing any kind of SAFETY faux pas, except that they may in fact may be SAFER without them(reference my earlier argument concerning straps/injuries)!!!!
Pilgrim's safety belief about the poles and his obsessive need to call them out as a necessary safety item is just that, a belief. A belief I and many others do not share, for all the prior reasons and probably some others I have not yet pondered...
They weren't issued to me in the USMC . Somehow I survived.
Thom