My backpacking profession has taken me by means of a whiteout blizzard at 12,000 toes within the Colorado Rockies; mosquito-infested jungle throughout a monsoonal deluge in Honduras; and 120°F warmth within the backside of Mexico’s Copper Canyon—however this was the worst climate I had ever skilled. I used to be imagined to embark upon Iceland’s difficult Fimmvörðuháls, a well-liked mountain cross within the southern highlands. In anticipation of an extended, arduous trek—15 miles, with nearly 4,000 toes of vertical ascent and descent—I set the alarm for 4:30 am, waking early to make ultimate preparations and grabbing one piece of drugs that’s aided me in so a lot of my adventures: my REI Co-op Hiker Energy Lock Employees. And I’m glad I did. Earlier than I even exited my tent, it started to rain. By the point I hoisted my pack, it was a downpour, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped a lot that my arthritic fingers started to stiffen.
I had accomplished the famed 35-mile Laugavegur Path the day gone by, and the Fimmvörðuháls—which is basically an extension of the Laugavegur—was meant to be the icing on my Icelandic cake. Regardless of worsening climate, I made a decision to forge forward. There was no time to attend out the storm: My spouse was impatiently awaiting my return from the path so we might discover Iceland’s well-known Ring Highway in a rented camper van.
Two hours in, I confronted maybe probably the most harmful part of the Fimmvörðuháls: An uncovered knife edge with tread not more than a foot vast and unsurvivable several-thousand-foot drop-offs on each side. The wind had reached gale power, the rain was beginning to combine with snow and ice was forming on the rock-studded path. I struggled to face upright. With one hand clutching my Hiker Energy Lock workers, I managed to inch alongside the backbone with out damage—only a churning abdomen and severely elevated coronary heart charge. Have been it not for that workers, I might have circled. Or the wind would have blown me off the knife edge. As an alternative, the pole helped me brace myself in opposition to oblivion.
Farther alongside the path, with the climate having deteriorated from dismal to horrific, I handed by means of a number of extra uncovered sections and crossed quite a few steep snow and ice fields the place I once more relied on my Hiker Energy Lock workers for propulsion, steadiness and, most significantly, confidence.
After I reached a safer checkpoint, I set free a sigh of aid and kissed my workers atop its rounded cork knob. I thanked it for, as soon as once more, serving to me attain security.
Some may marvel why I didn’t make the most of a pair of trekking poles, like most each different hiker on the planet. Properly, I’m concurrently an anomaly and an anachronism: a lifelong path tripod, a person who makes use of a single pole.
Even supposing I’ve absolutely embraced latest technological developments in backpacking equipage when acceptable—primarily the evolution of ultralight gear—I stay at coronary heart “old-school.” My footwear stash features a pair of heavy leather-based mountaineering boots, which I don primarily for impact when going out for beers. I personal an external-frame Kelty Tioga pack, which I exploit for heavy masses and after I wish to commune with the spirit of the late backpacking icon and writer Colin Fletcher. And, till just lately, I introduced with me to the path a wood mountaineering stick, procured a few years in the past from the darkest nook of a dusty vintage emporium. It’s inconceivable to guess what number of miles that stick and I’ve hiked collectively.
In my a part of the world, lots of people—principally, like me, of a sure age—nonetheless use mountaineering sticks, and I’ve loved many nice trailside conversations with fellow hikers about theirs. Their origin tales, what sort of wooden they have been made from, the place they’ve been.
Finally, I needed to retire my wood stick. As soon as 59 inches excessive, it had eroded by greater than half a foot and developed a crack that rendered it unsafe to make use of. On the similar time, I started visiting farther-flung trails that required air journey and, sadly, lengthy wood mountaineering sticks will not be thought-about appropriate carry-on baggage. It wouldn’t have survived being stowed within the stomach of a airplane underneath mountains of bags.
Not one of the apparent alternate options—mountaineering with no stick, utilizing a pair of trekking poles, or shopping for a pair of trekking poles and utilizing just one—appealed to me. Despondently, I believed I would must resign myself to mountaineering locations that didn’t require flying.
Then, whereas strolling by means of the REI in Tucson, Arizona, I stumbled on the Hiker Energy Lock Employees. It was like a vivid heavenly gentle had all of a sudden shined down upon the aisle by which I used to be standing. I couldn’t pull my pockets out quick sufficient. The Hiker Energy Lock Employees and I’ve been joined on the hip(strap) ever since. Now, after I fly, I collapse it down, stash it inside my pack and ship it into the stomach of the aeronautical beast. (Metallic poles with pointy suggestions will not be allowed in the principle cabin, for apparent causes.)
After a few years and plenty of miles of utilizing a mountaineering stick, I’m used to a single help. I’ve tried trekking poles however they felt too awkward. I ended up paying extra consideration to pole placement than I did foot placement. Whereas I perceive there might be indignant scoffs, I contemplate the workers to be extra versatile than a pair of poles.
One other principal attraction to utilizing a single workers is having a set of unencumbered palms. I don’t should de-couple to wipe my nostril or pull a snack from my hipbelt pocket.
I just lately accomplished an extended traverse of the huge wilderness space that lies near my house in New Mexico. Halfway by means of, I spontaneously diverted from the system path I had been following and bushwhacked up a creek mattress. The canyon boxed up tight and I used to be pressured to barter sequence after sequence of house-size boulders that jammed my route, requiring gymnastics that may have been extra difficult with trekking poles. I might have needed to transfer each poles to at least one hand or emove my pack (tough, provided that I used to be, for probably the most half, standing in waist-deep water) to stash one or each of them.
As an alternative, with the Hiker Energy Lock Employees serving to to keep up my steadiness, I had a free hand that I might use to grip the rock faces I used to be ascending.
There are further options that enchantment to me. The REI workers’s padded grip is 8 inches lengthy, making it straightforward to reposition my hand as conditions benefit. On this regard, it mimics one of many principal benefits in utilizing a wood mountaineering stick. (Right here I ought to be aware that whereas the Hiker Energy Lock Employees has wrist straps, I select to not use them. Once more, private desire.) With a completely prolonged size of 55 inches, the workers additionally has an extended most size than most trekking poles, including to its versatility, particularly on extraordinarily steep descents.
My trekking-pole-using spouse, who is never on the path with out photographic gear, enjoys that the cork cap of my Hiker Energy Lock Employees will be eliminated, exposing a threaded digicam mount that turns the workers right into a useful monopod. (After she snaps a number of pictures, I make her give me again my workers.)
At 10.2 ounces, the REI Co-op Hiker Energy Lock Employees is gentle. Its collapsed size of 26 inches makes it straightforward to stow on each day packs and backpacks for instances when a blemish-free path means a workers isn’t required, or when each palms are wanted for scrambling. Its exterior lever locks are bomber. I’ve tried to make these locks fail by putting my whole physique higher weight upon them they usually have held quick—a superb function while you’re relying upon the workers that will help you cross a raging river or maintain you from plummeting off a cliff in Iceland.
There’s little question that my Hiker Energy Lock Employees won’t ever match the old-school aesthetic of my beloved wood mountaineering stick, which I maintain parked within the nook of my workplace to remind me of the various adventures we as soon as shared. Future adventures, although, will happen with my workers tightly held in a single hand, whereas the opposite hand stays free to wipe my nostril and retrieve snacks.
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