what is up welcome to the channel today i'm going to reveal to you what i think is one of the most
underrated pieces of hiking gear drum roll please this mystery piece of hiking gear is
trekking bowls i love trekking poles i did not always use trekking poles and now that
i have them i don't know how i hiked without them so in this video i'm going to share some
reasons that i love them and at the end of the video i'll share the specific ones that i have
honestly one of the reasons that i didn't buy them for so long was because i thought they were
just really expensive for something that i was getting by fine without but these are actually
really great quality and a really good price point so we'll talk about that at the end of the video
so the first reason that i love trekking poles is they make your hike so much easier so for example
if your hike has any sort of elevation gain or elevation loss trekking poles for me are a must
because when you're going uphill for example if you don't have your trekking poles it's really
just your legs doing the work but trekking poles get your arms involved and then that takes some of
the weight off of your legs and also takes some of the strain off of your knees and off of your hips
and so if you're going on long hikes backpacking trips long day hikes with a lot of elevation gain
over time this will make such a difference if you're someone whose hands swell a lot as you're
hiking using trekking poles will eliminate or really reduce that hand swelling as well
now if you've hiked a lot you know that oftentimes the downhill is one of the most challenging
parts of a hike especially if the downhill happens to be at the end of your hike when your legs are
already tired it's just a time in the hike that is really prone to injury so again our trusty
trekking poles provide stability as you're going downhill they provide stability on wet and muddy
hikes which it is spring right now this is full on spring hiking it's muddy here and so as i'm going
down little sections that are slippery and muddy i love having my trekking poles so all of that is a
good reason to get yourself some trekking poles but i'm not done reason number two is trekking
poles can help reduce falls and injuries now when you're hiking this should be a top priority of
yours you want to stay safe especially if you're doing really long day hikes or your days and miles
into the back country where advanced medical care is not quickly available so avoiding injuries is
really important and i think one of the simple ways to do that is using trekking poles because
they give you that extra level of stability as you're going up and down and over things that are
uneven or slippery like we already kind of talked about next we have some emergency and first aid
uses with trekking poles and you can get really creative here one simple thing that you can do
with these is take some extra clothing that you have and pad the top and they can be used as
improvised crutches they can be used as splints or stretchers in the backcountry so again
there are a lot of of great first aid uses for this piece of gear which is awesome to have one
piece of gear that kind of does a lot of different things and that can help you in an emergency
situation another use could potentially be to make some sort of shelter an emergency shelter using
your trekking poles and other resources around you we actually use trekking poles intentionally
sometimes in the back country we have a really cool tarp tent and instead of carrying all these
poles and stuff you set up this tent with trekking poles so it actually saves us a ton of weight
in our backpack when we're in the backcountry so that's an intentional use for trekking poles but
as you can see there are just a lot of uses that potentially could really help you in
a sticky situation outside you probably want them by now right but we're not done
the next use for these trekking poles is this is probably one of my favorite reasons to have
trekking poles is they can be used to probe into water or snow to see how deep it is and also to
help you cross streams and rivers and stuff like that now this is not a full tutorial on how to
cross rivers um that is very very dangerous i do want to kind of go over a couple uses though and
how the trekking poles can assist with that but this is not a full-blown tutorial so first of all
when you're crossing something like this is just a little stream here not really high risk right
but when you're crossing something let's say without these trekking poles and i'm just like
crossing the river picking up my foot all of a sudden here this is not a good position right
i only have one point of contact on the ground i'm in moving water and then this foot that i'm
stepping down with i don't know how even that surf is gonna be there might be some rocks down there
and so this is just like not great if you fall you get all your stuff wet and so trekking poles are
great because now as i'm going through the water i have four points of contact two feet two trucking
poles and as i step i'm always thinking in my head three points of contact so i want to move one pull
or one foot at a time and then i have three points of contact i'm much more stable and i can kind of
feel in front of me how deep something is going to be how loose the ground is and it provides such a
more stable safe base for when you're actually crossing we use trekking poles when we did the
paria canyon backpacking trip and that water was very like muddy and murky and so you would
get to a water crossing and you can't even see the bottom so i would constantly use my trekking
pole to probe to see how deep that water was and then to keep me stable as i was moving across it
i mean all these points are really important but this one especially crossing water is just super
dangerous and trekking poles make it a lot more stable this is the good spring hiking right here
so we are in it now uh this is a really really muddy steep uphill and it's just it's springtime
so things are just a lot more wet and i don't know about this section of trail without the
trekking poles i'm pretty sure i would fall i've actually done this hike the first time i did it
was like nine years ago in the spring and i did fall i had sneakers on no trekking poles
definitely am a lot more prepared and skillful now i would say but i actually fell on part of
the trail down there like full wipeout covered in mud so this is uh bringing back memories
but yeah just a really a prime example of a section of trail that trekking poles are just
key okay so by now those are some big reasons to consider some trekking poles but there's just
one other one i feel like an infomercial you know but wait there's more call now
and i guess in a pinch you could really use your trekking poles to ward off some animals
i personally have never had to do that thankfully i have heard stories of of people using their
trekking poles to to ward off bears and stuff so i mean it happens and there you go yet another use
now before i dive into the specific ones that i have you'll notice a little bit of duct tape
here and this is just like a little tip i guess i like to have a little bit of duct tape on my
trekking pole for quick patches or gear repairs or something like that it's just like a cool place to
store a little bit of duct tape now these trekking poles that i have like i said they're not
expensive i will link to these in the description below i haven't tried like a million different
brands and whatnot but i found that these are just awesome for the price point nick has had his pair
for i think almost six years now and they're just at the point where they kind of need to be
replaced but i mean that's six years of a ton of use we've definitely put these through the
ringer and i want to share a couple features that i really like when it comes to a trekking pole so
no matter what brand you go for these are the two things that i would look for one is cork handles
now you usually find cork or rubber and as your hands start to get sweaty on a hike cork i think
is just a lot more comfortable rubber becomes slippery as your hands start to sweat and then the
other thing these are carbon fiber trekking poles so usually there's carbon fiber or aluminum and
carbon fiber while it is typically a little bit more expensive they are going to be stronger and
lighter so that's what i look for in my trekking poles like i said these have been just absolutely
great for us and i will link to them in the description below now before you click off this
video i am really curious so in the comments if you have trekking poles share some of the reasons
that you love them and if you don't have trekking poles have i changed your mind i'm really curious
to read your comments below so thank you so much for watching i will see you in the next video