Walking Sticks

They're known as walking sticks, staffs, or trekking poles; but whatever you want to call them, I highly recommend using them.  They are especially useful for hiking in the rugged Sahyadri Mountains.  Backpacking puts extra weight on your knees, hips, and ankles; walking sticks can help alleviate the strain.  They also give hikers added confidence, which tends to allow people to walk more naturally, and again, put less stain on your body.  Using two sticks provides even more support.

There are many choices of sticks out there, from your basic wooden stick all the way up to high-tech shock-absorbing, telescoping trekking poles.  Prices can range from ten dollars for your basic stick (or free, if you pull a branch off of a tree at home!) to $120 for a pair of the high-tech telescoping poles.  So why would a person spend $120 when ten dollars can get you going?  The most important and useful feature is the ability to adjust the length of the sticks.  When you are going downhill, the trail is further below you, so it helps to have the sticks adjusted to a longer length.   Going uphill the sticks should be shorter.  Adjusting the length also allows you to keep your arms at a comfortable height.  When you are hiking for three to seven hours in a day, your comfort is of the utmost importance!  Shock absorbing features help prevent the jarring of your wrists and hands.  Another important feature to look for are molded hand grips.  They fit the shape of your hand, which helps prevent blisters on your palms and fingers.  And last, but not least, they tend to be quite a bit lighter than wooden walking sticks.  And collapsing sticks can be packed away when not in use.  Walking sticks can be rented quite inexpensively and are worth their weight in gold!  Even though the wooden sticks are not as nice, they are much better than not having anything at all!

To imagine you are carrying a heavy backpack, and to top it off, there are some intimidating drop-offs at the edge of the trail!  Are you nervous?  Usually, yes!  Do you tend to walk stiffly and carefully to avoid falling?  Definitely!  Well, every time you take a cautious step down, you are putting tremendous pressure on your knees.  After miles of this constant pressure, knee problems can occur where they never have before.  If you use one or two walking sticks, your stride will be much more natural because of the added confidence and support.  Your knees, hips, and ankles will thank you for it!  Using sticks spreads the exertion over your entire body instead of focusing it entirely on your legs.  You can imagine how "fun" your hike out would be worrying about "blown-out" knees.  And, contrary to popular belief, you can't get a mule or helicopter ride out just by showing your gold or platinum credit card!  As a ranger, I've seen many a grown person cry because of this! 

Keep in mind that what goes down must come back up!  It is the complete opposite of hiking in the mountains.  In the mountains, people are weeded out because they get tired walking uphill.  Unfortunately, at the Sahyadri mountains, people hike down with no thought about the difficulty of going back up!  You can avoid this problem by being prepared for it—mentally and physically. Walking sticks help tremendously in both categories. 

A quote from a recent convert to walking sticks:

"Neither of us had used one before, and all we could say for the first three days was, "LOVE the stick", over and over again. Now that we've used them, we can't imagine ever backpacking without them again."

Jami