Anyone who knows me knows that I’m happiest when I’m on the trail in my . I first fell in love with hiking on a three-day trek across Lapland when I was a teenager. My first job out of college took me to Vermont, where I roamed the Green Mountains in the summer, then I graduated on to the towering Rocky Mountains during my 11 years living in .
Four years ago, I moved home to Scotland and nowadays you can usually find me on the , up a or if I’m lucky, over in the Alps. For a long time, it never occurred to me to use on my hikes other than during steep descents from , where I might use a single ski pole to take the strain off my knees and navigate . I didn’t necessarily think they weren’t worthwhile, but I suppose the only people I saw using them were old – often around town for that matter – and since I wasn’t old, I didn’t think to try them.
Fast forward and now I’m 42 which still isn’t old, but seven years ago and after two knee surgeries to build me a new one, it was obvious I needed to hike with poles. Even though my knee is rehabbed now and I can happily hike, and in terrain, usually to the tune of at least 50 km of hiking a month, I still swear by my trekking poles. Trekking poles typically come as a pair and are essentially two walking sticks intended for hiking.
They look a lot like ski poles and usually have either a , wrist straps and are retractable or foldable so that they can be packed away in your backpack when you’re not using them. Trekk.
