Hi

There was some interresting posts about using poles in the UTMB thread, so I thought I would start a thread about them specifically to get everyones take on them.

I have always been a bit anti poles, very bigoted, but there are just too many people walking around St Ives streets with them!

A freind of mine who does alot of walking convinced me to have a go with some so I got a £13 pair from Tesco to see how I got on with them. In February I went up onto Dartmoor and found I got on with them quite well and felt even better about being able to leave the front pole of my Tarptent Squall behind and used the trekking pole instead.

On the basis of this successful outing I bought a pair of TiGoat AGPs: http://www.titaniumgoat.com/poles.html (The lowers are now carbon too) I particularly liked the look of these as you can join the two poles together without carrying anythin extra to make a longer tent pole, so I can use them with my Mountain Hardwear Kiva).

I took them for a walk on the coast path, but found that the places I really wanted to use them the path was too narrow and I ended up carrying them much of the way!

I then used them again on Dartmoor when it was really horrible, mist and heavy horrizontal rain. I made a navigational error I'm convinced I would not have made had I been carrying my map and compass and not poles! This is my biggest issue with poles, how do you navigated effectively? Sure you can stop and get your map and compass out, but that is going to slow you down. I tend to navigate on the move, looking at the map fairly frequently, but not actually stopping.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about the use of ploes?

James