I’m a tightwad. I also don’t care much for gimmicks and the like. If you’ve spent any time looking at hiking gear you’ve no doubt seen it all. I never really considered trekking poles i my younger years. I’ve run around to many places without needing fancy sticks to get there. When you start talking about a week in the apline back country you have to reevaluate how you normally do things. After packing 55 pounds on my back the last trip, those fancy sticks started looking pretty nice.
The internet will tell you that the Black Diamond Apline Carbon Cork trekking poles are where it’s at. Why reinvent the wheel, right? Just do what the internet tells you and save up for the Black Diamond poles. At one half pound each and full carbon fiber shaft construction they don’t disappoint.
The first thing I did when they arrived was to remove the wrist straps and mud baskets. Why you may ask? Because the internet told me to. And we’ve already established that we do what the internet tells us. I’ve had a chance to climb Mt. Ellinor in the Olympic National Park with these poles and they were fantastic! The carbide tip barely shows any of the use and the included snow baskets took the abuse from my snow spikes without skipping a beat.
These poles feature the Flicklock Pro steel clamps for a very positive lock. I use my gear hard and these poles are designed to stand up to the abuse. The handle is all cork, with a foam grip beneath if you need to quickly adjust where you are grabbing the pole. I’m all about cork, not so much about foam. If they made an all cork version I would have made that purchase. That being said the foam performs excellently and I was able to transition from the main grip and axillary grip seamlessly.
I will be putting these poles through their paces with TMEJ and reporting back.
UPDATE 07/29/17: When you have fifty pounds on your back you better have some trekking poles. These poles held up great. After about forty miles of hard trail use the carbide tips still look almost new. The softer plastic housings for the tips are showing wear as would be expected from bashing around on rocks. The cork and foam grips worked flawlessly, as well as the Flicklock Pro adjusters. With miles of long steep descending trails I put full weight on these poles and didn’t experience any issues with locks slipping or poles deflecting. I have and will continue to recommend these to anyone who will listen.