Do you usually take trekking/hiking poles on alpine climbing trips?

I take trekking/hiking poles with me on pretty much any climbing trip with an approach of over an hour or long sections of easy ground.

I like them for general balance, upward progression, stream crossings, and saving my knees on the downhill. I also often use them as supports for my tent/tarp/shelter.

I have 3 section poles that fold down to a reasonable length and get strapped on my pack for actual climbing.

I'm curious. What do others do? Are you pole converts like me, or do you not bother with poles.

Definitely!

In addition to what you mentioned, the other benefits are:

>increased aerobic exercise since you are using your arms.

>the opportunity to exercise your core.

>working your triceps for elbow health since climbing uses biceps.

>stay in shape for the BC skiing season.

>Bears and Mountain Lions will likely be deterred seeing and hearing the extra hardware. If there is an interaction, poles can be used as weapons.

Yes, but when weight is an issue (which it almost always is) I only bring one pole.

For glacier travel or easy-angled snow I use a pole in one hand and a shortish ice-axe in the other (BD Venom). It's more versatile combination than a traditional walking axe.

When you put them down make sure to keep the hand grips and wrist loops out of reach of hungry marmots. They'll gnaw them to shreds trying to get at the salty perspiration they've absorbed.

I use them for all my trips, for any approach longer than 200 yards.

Despite the perpetual mocking from my climbing partners, it's a massive knee saver (had surgery twice on the same knee). Help with balance is another major one. They've prevented many a face plant.

I bring poles on backcountry trips. Saving knees, supporting tarp shelter, and crossing streams all help practically justify bringing them. Less tangibly, though still important, I consider them part of my self-rescue kit. Any lower body injury is much easier to self-evac with solid trekking poles...

I prefer non-adjustable, fixed-length poles such as the BD Z-poles and (now discontinued?) Life-Link A.T. Superlight. After experiencing the locking/adjusting mechanism fail on three sets of poles, I now prefer to remove that complexity from my backcountry setup...

Ben T wrote: Less tangibly, though still important, I consider them part of my self-rescue kit. Any lower body injury is much easier to self-evac with solid trekking poles...

That too! I forgot about that. Two years ago I helped with a broken ankle self-evac that was successful because I had my poles to lend. It was also successful because the victim was dedicated to not calling it in, I had a full roll of tape, and because i was able to drive to the old Lumpy trail head.

Unless there is a lot of boulder-hopping on the approach, I always take them. And as mentioned earlier, I have the "compact" variety, so they easily fit in a climbing pack.

Poles make on and off trail hiking much easier, except when I start having to use my hands on the approach (think third class or boulder-hopping).

I bring them for extended snow travel or backcountry trips several days or longer, otherwise I generally do without. I try to avoid having them during the actual climbing...I'm a lot less likely to bring them if I know I'll have to carry em over. They're handy for my pyramid tarps.

I sometimes carry one pole on long approach hikes if I've got a big pack and if trail will be rugged. For winter snowshoe approaches or hikes, I don't know how I did them decades ago without a pair of adjustable hiking poles. Used old ski poles long ago that were clunky, often wrong length, and not easy to tuck out of the way later. Love to use trek poles now, as I get older, for a bit of knee relief on the downhill slopes or trails too. Even the cheap $7.00 ones with no shock absorbers are better than nothing.

Absolutely!!! I do alot of spring and summer snowboarding as well and poles are 1000% essential for stability, speed, stride etc. I chose to leave them in the car one trip and it was horrendous. Even borrowing one pole on the way out from my buddy was a total and complete world of difference.

There is always at least one collapsable pole in my car,,with screw on rubber tip for hikes, carbide tip for snow or ice. Even works pretty well for chipping out snow or ice from stuck cars in winter.

Agree with all, and I have even fashioned them together to make an improvised jimmy-rigged stick clip for that odd crux start .

I got some device, think it was made by BD,,that connects 2 poles together to use as a center pole for setting up a pyramid tent or shelter. Nice to use when you really want to go ultra lightweight and not carry tent poles.

Yeah, I use them too. Although I don't like carrying them, they save my arthritic hip. Impact is the biggest aggravating factor. So the poles help, especially going down hill, to keep up a reasonable pace and minimize impact from walking hard. I spent the money and got the light weight folding BD poles.

I haul mine to the top of El Cap for the hike down.

Superclimber wrote:Yeah, I use them too. Although I don't like carrying them, they save my arthritic hip. Impact is the biggest aggravating factor. So the poles help, especially going down hill, to keep up a reasonable pace and minimize impact from walking hard. I spent the money and got the light weight folding BD poles.

Exactly. Hips, knees and one recovering broken ankle just can't take the impact (thus no bouldering for me). Poles on the downhill streteched out to max length are the best thing for taking the weight and impact off the hike downhill now days. Well worth taking them along.

I'm starting to. I just don't see a lot of downside. Plus I was given a really nice pair. Carbide tips are a necessity, bso much better on rock.

I did take a pair of backcountry ski poles last year and wouldn't do that again, they don't collapse small enough, so I had to hike back to the base of the climb.