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Swore off trekking poles for 9 years, then a guy on the JMT made me eat my words
I always thought poles were for people who packed too heavy, and I hiked the first 200 miles of the John Muir Trail in 2015 without them just to prove it. Last week I ran into a hiker named Marcus near Thousand Island Lake who had just come off a 22-day thru-hike, and he asked how my knees felt on the descents. I told him they were trashed by mile 8 every day, and he pulled out his poles and said, "man, that's the whole reason I carry these." He let me use them for the 6 miles down to Reds Meadow, and my knees didn't bark once. I felt like a stubborn idiot for hauling that grudge around for almost a decade. Now I'm trying to figure out what length to actually buy, so what's worked for you tall folks on steep downhills?
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