A Brief Rant

A Brief Rant Regarding Poles

For those of you unfamiliar with poles, you can go look at  Leki's site and familiarize yourself with them.  Other people make poles, but they are probably the most popular.  I use Super Malakkus myself.

Here's the thing:  people claim that poles damage trails.  I will not go so far as to say that poles are good for trails because they "areate the soil" with the little holes.  I think that's likely total bullshit.  I also think that hiking in rain and mud does an order of magnitude more damage than a user of poles.  People claim that poles scratch rocks here and there, but you only scratch rocks if you keep yourself from falling...which is a good thing since a rescue mission to medivac out your sorry ass is bound to impact the wilderness far more than a scratch on a rock.  Thus, areas with scratched rocks should set off a bell in your head that someone else lost their footing there.  I see this as useful information, but others see it as a blight.

People further claim that rubber tips will keep you from "damaging" the trail.  

Again, this is not true.  

I know that I've found rubber tips here and there on the Appalachian Trail.  IMHO, leaving bits of plastic in the trail that will never biodegrade is a larger problem than holes.  Leki claims those rubber tips are for pavement.  They are not intended to be used in dirt, as they will come off.  And they'll make a bigger hole in soft soils than the carbide tip does.  And if they skid across a rock, they'll leave plastic on it instead of a scratch.  Oh yes, that's so much better.  And again, if you hike in rain and mud, you're constantly messing up the treadway and helping it erode, so if you really care so much that you hassle people about using poles, you certainly shouldn't be doing that either.

And if you care that much, maybe you can kick some people's asses who seem to think they can leave trash in fire rings.  What the hell makes people think that leaving it in a fire ring renders it invisible?  Oh, that's right.  They don't think.

I really needed to get that off my chest, and I didn't want to do it on a mailing list or BBS.  Whew.  I feel much better now.

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