Hiking in Colorado

17 April 2008

Hiking Poles

Posted by kris under: Tips & Tricks .

Hiking poles have always interested me and I have always wondered what the benefits are to using them. I first thought that they were simply used to help you use your arms so that you can make it up the mountain quicker, but it turns out that they do some much more.

While hiking with some friends that use hiking poles I asked them why they used them, and they told me that it really helps them take some of the presser off of their joints. This is epically true when they are going down hill. Not only does it take pressure off of your joints, but it can also help you to be more stable in any situation. It is like having four lags. Right now in Colorado Springs there is still some snow on the mountains, therefore, there are some icy spots that are hard to get through without slipping down the edge of the mountain. I notice that the people that did have poles were able to use them to stabilize themselves by sticking the pole into the snow to get good leverage.

After see how much these helped and knowing that I could really use some help with reducing the strain on my joints and help with my stamina, I decided to look into what hiking poles can do for you. Here are some of the things that I found out. First thing that I like about modern hiking poles is that almost all of them are collapsible. Therefore, they are great for backpacking since you can collapse them for storage. It is best to get 3 part poles because they collapse to the smallest size. It also helps to adjust the length correctly for your height so that your arm makes a 90 degree angel when you are holding the pole. In some cases the pair of poles will have a right and left pole, this helps with hand placement and holding the pole. In the next paragraph I talk more about how to hold the poles.

Most hiking poles come with wrist straps but they are not just to keep the poles from getting lost they are acutely your primary support. In order to increase your endurance and not make your hands tired you use the wrist straps in the following way to: first put your hands through the strap from the bottom; then take two our three fingers and your thumb and gently grip the pole; use your fingers and thumb to guide the pole to where you want to place the pole. The whole idea is that you want to put the weight onto your wrist and arms and not on your hands. This allows you to use more of your upper body strength and not tire as easily.

Some other techniques are to shorten your poles when you are doing mostly up hill climbing and lengthen them when you are going down hill. When you are more level surfaces place the pole even with the heel of the opposite foot. This gives you maxim efficiency and stability.

They also come with many accessories that can help you in different situations. For example they come with baskets (like what you see on ski poles) for hiking in the snow to prevent the pole from penetrating to fare. Also you can use rubber or carbide tips where rubber will not penetrate as much and not scrap rocky surfaces, where as carbide will not slip as much in wet conditions. In the end it usually is more about personal preference on which tips you pick.

This is something that I found very interesting and I am planning on purchasing some in the near future to see how they work for me.

You can find products like hiking poles and other camping and hiking gear at REI.com

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