Email this article

Let Us Now Praise Trekking Poles

By Michael Wolcott

"One bad move can turn your world upside down."

- Lyle Lovett

I am visiting my oldest brother in Colorado. We are volunteers today, clearing trail on the Rio Grande National Forest. The air is clean and full of birdsong, the snowy crown of the Continental Divide suitably impressive. There's not much deadfall, and hence not much to do, which is fine with us. We walk and catch up on each other's lives.

As middle-aged people will, we talk about being middle-aged. We joke about our aches and pains, bemoan our misshapen and disappearing cartilage, one-up each other with details of arthroscopies we have known. Like a lot of outdoors-types our age, we sport knee braces, eat ibuprofen like M&Ms, and extol the virtues of glucosamine and MSM.

My shredded knees and ankles are a product of my excellent luck: for more than two decades, I've been a wilderness bum and Forest Service seasonal. It's the best life I could imagine, but there are predictable dues to pay. My first knee surgery, ten years ago, was not an immediate success. For six months or so, about all the outdoor recreation I could handle was walking from the front door to the pickup truck. For someone who defines himself by mobility, a limiting injury can seem like a death sentence. I fell into a miserable depression. My days were spent peddling a stationary bicycle toward a future that I wasn't convinced would be worth living.

Luckily, the rehab worked. Eventually I resumed my outdoor ways, with some modification. Overstuffed backpacks were definitely out; the Religion of Ultralite was in. I became more deliberate and cautious in the backcountry. And I reluctantly bought a pair of trekking poles.

The first time I had seen trekking poles was at Grand Canyon in 1987. A German tourist came marching up the Grandview Trail going clickety-clickety-click. I laughed. As they began to catch on in the States during the nineties, I scoffed. Trekking poles were another sign of American consumerismo run amok, a gear-head affectation. They were over-engineered. They cost way too much. And besides, they looked geeky.

But my refurbished knee needed all the help it could get. So I choked back my scorn and tried them. I didn't like the noise that trekking poles made. And it was annoying to have something in each hand as I walked. One day I got fed up and flung them at a ponderosa pine tree with all the fury that my injury had caused in me.

With time, though, trekking poles became my friends. Those two extra points of balance made everything easier. They helped me cross streams without slipping or being swept away. They kept me from falling down when I clambered over brush piles or found myself travelling off-trail or in the dark. They made the steepest downhill pitches seem less steep. Every other animal in the woods has four legs, why not us?

I became a trekking-pole evangelist, encouraging the twenty-somethings in the Forest Service bunkhouses to give them a try. Few ever did. But one day - maybe after their first (or second) surgery - they probably will. They will realize that trekking poles - geeky though they may be - make sense. They can extend your outdoor life. If being out there is what you love the most, you'll want to do it for as long as you can, right?

I mention this to my brother, who has just retired, and recommend that he give them a try sometime. He says maybe he will. I would offer to let him use mine today, but they are in the truck. We're day-hiking on a maintained trail, so they didn't seem necessary.

Ten minutes later he stops to get something out of his pack. I walk ahead, where the trail crosses a boulder-strewn side-slope. Stepping down onto a sloping rock powdered with trail grit, my traction fails and I go skidding ass-over-teakettle into the rocks. The landing is mercifully soft - no breaks, no bleeding, no dents in my head. But it could have been a lot worse. It could have ended my life in the outdoors. Or just plain ended my life.

My brother comes up from behind and finds me dusting myself off.

"What happened?"

"Didn't bring my trekking poles," I say. "You know, you should never leave home without them."