Lightrek Hiking Poles

Field Report by Rick Allnutt -1 Nov 2004

PERSONAL BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Rick Allnutt
51 Year old male
183 cm (6' 0'') in height
91 kg (200 lbs) in weight
Email address: rick (at) BackpackGearTest (dot) org
Trail Name: Risk
Hiking website: http://www.imrisk.com
I live in Dayton, Ohio

BACKPACKING BACKGROUND
Over the last several years, I have become an ultralight camper with a three-season base pack weight of about 5 kg (11 lb) and skin out weight of 9 kg (20 lb). I have completed many section hikes on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in all four seasons, with a total mileage of nearly 1000 km (600 mi). I am a gearhead, a hammock camper, and make much of my own equipment.

PRODUCT INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Gossamer Gear
Year Manufactured: 2004
Manufacturer's Link: http://www.gossamergear.com/
MSRP: US$95.95
Listed Weight: 69 g (2.445 oz) each (Gossamer Gear supplies this level of accuracy)
Size: 120 cm (47.3 in)
Measured Weight:  67 and 72g ( 2.4 and 2.5 oz) for each pole
Measured Length: 122 cm (48.2 in)
Measured shaft diameter: 10mm  (3/8 in)

For a complete physical description of the poles, see my INITIAL REVIEW.

FIELD CONDITIONS
I have used the poles for just over 320 km (200 mi) during about two weeks of section hiking on the AT. The major sections included half the Great Smoky Mountains; a section south of Hot Springs, North Carolina; the Roan Highlands; and the Iron Mountain ridge south of Damascus, Virginia. Weather has been hot to cool, with many days of walking in the fog or heat. I have walked up and down steep, irregular paths including climbs and descents of over 600 m (2000 ft) and on extended "rock garden" sections when each step was on a rock the size of a breadbox. I walked in rain for 4 days, including the remaining wind and tropical deluge caused by Hurricane Jeanne. This turned many of the paths I walked into mires of mud or creekbeds up to ankle high with rushing water.

REVIEW
The first significant walk I took with the poles was through the northern half of the Smoky Mountains along the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. I clearly remember a situation on my second day, while ascending from Newfound Gap to the Icewater Shelter, coming across a muddy mire that was a two inch deep puddle of mud and spanned from rocks on one side of the path to dense vegetation on the other side of the path.

As I placed my feet to the far left of the mire, my hips were out over the mud and I needed to lean on my poles to keep from falling toward the middle of the path. I discovered very quickly that this amount of weight on the poles is not within the performance envelope for the thin carbon fiber poles.  The pole began to bend to an alarming degree.  I stopped pushing on the poles and stepped into the mud. 

As I thought through the experience, I realized that I began the bending action by holding onto the pole in the standard manner and this tended to pull the center of the pole toward me, flexing the pole.

I began to experiment with holding the pole mainly with my thumb and first finger, wrapping them around the ridge at the bottom of the hand grip.

As I continued on the hike, I found this to be a very comfortable hand position. It worked very well descending steep sections of the trail. I found I could use the standard hand grip to power up hills, and the different hand positions helped my hands to stay comfortable in a full week of walking.

I did take one headfirst lunge when my toe became tangled on a root. I was holding the poles with the grip shown here.  Instead of over stressing the poles, my hands slipped off the hand grip and down the pole as I recovered. 

I quickly made this hand grip my primary hand hold on the poles for my next three AT section hikes. It quickly became second nature and continues to serve me well.

On the second hike I made with the poles, Hurricane Jeanne was blowing herself out across the balds of the Roan Highlands. The poles helped me to stay standing as 100 kph (60 mph) winds beat me across the mountain tops. The wind did keep blowing the poles' tips sideways so that it was difficult to plant the poles' tips where I intended. Instead they kept getting planted the length of my foot downwind.  If someone else would have been up there in those wind torn clouds with me they might have thought I was drunk the way I was staggering across the balds. I certainly appreciated the thin wind profile of the poles in these conditions.

On the third hike, a 4 day 116 km (72 mi)  sprint, one other tendency of the poles came to light. More than once, I was walking along at a brisk pace when a pole tip tangled in a root or behind a rock. Before I knew it, the pole was a step behind me and pointing up the path at me. There was nothing to do but to stop and go back to retrieve the pole. It occasionally felt like I should be able to reach back toward the pole and command it to come back into my hand like a Jedi Knight, but try as I might, I always had to go back and get the pole.

I find a great advantage of the poles is being able to quickly move both poles into one hand. Descending or climbing, it is nice to grab a tree or rock without going through the process of taking a wrist strap off. I begin to wonder how I ever got used to wrist straps.

It would not be proper for me to finish this review without mentioning the many comments I have gotten on the poles in shelters and along the trail.  People look at the poles and ask several questions about them. They often ask to hold the poles and always look my straight in the eye and exclaim something like "Wow! That's light!"

In summary, I really like these poles. I had to make a couple changes to the way I use poles, but my hiking has improved as a result. I look forward to the next 4 months of use and testing.

Here are comments on the items I named in the Initial Report as important:

- Are the poles strong enough for careful but routine use? After I learned to treat them gently, they have performed very well.
- How do the hand grips feel after long days of use? Very comfortable.
- Does it work well to not use wrist straps?
  -- hand tiredness - No more than regular poles.
  -- dropping poles - I occasionally leave a pole behind and have to go back a step for it.
- Is there benefit to a small loop of cord on the pole as described in the owner's manual? I drop a pole about twice a day.  In that time, I have put both poles in one hand many times to hold on a tree or otherwise use a hand.  I will not be adding a cord.
- Are the materials appropriate?
  -- Do the hand grips deteriorate in any way? No.
  -- Is there any delaminating of the carbon fiber cloth? No.
- Do the baskets stay in place? Yes.
- How much inconvenience is there to not being able to shorten the poles?
  -- on trail None.
  -- travel I discovered that the poles fit quite nicely behind the seat of my pick up truck.

What I really like so far about the Lightrek Poles:
Incredibly low weight!
Comfortable Hand Grips.
Small cross section and wind resistance.