What My Left Knee Said After the First Descent

The first time I took these poles down a real descent, my left knee said something I hadn't heard in two years: nothing. No twinge on the first step down. No brace-for-impact grab at the handrail that wasn't there. Just a quiet, normal step, then another, then the whole rocky drop to the creek. I stood at the bottom and laughed at myself for waiting this long to buy a pair of trekking poles.

I'm Wes Harlan. I'm 54, retired from teaching PE at a high school outside Louisville, and I've been camping about 20 years, backpacking for the last 8. My left knee has been cranky for a while, and my lower back lets me know when a pack is fitted wrong. So when I started looking at poles, I wasn't after some piece of gear to show off. I wanted something that would take the sting out of descents and take some weight off my back on the ups.

I bought the BLACK DIAMOND Trail Trekking Poles after a spring trip to Big South Fork where I babied that knee down every hill. On the drive home I told Dana, my wife, that I was done guessing. She does the car camping with me, not the backpacking, but she knows what a bad knee sounds like after a long day. She said to get the good ones and stop complaining. So I did.

These are the lightweight aluminum pair, not the carbon ones. I wanted something that would hold up to rocky trails in the Red River Gorge and the Sheltowee Trace without feeling like I was carrying a tent pole in each hand. They came in at a weight I could live with, and after one full season of weekend trips and a week in the Smokies, I can tell you exactly what they do and what they don't.

That first descent was on a section of the Sheltowee Trace near Cumberland Falls. The trail dropped maybe 400 feet in a half mile, loose rock, roots, the kind of thing that used to make me slow down and pick each step like I was crossing a frozen creek. With the BLACK DIAMOND poles in my hands, I set the length, planted ahead of my feet, and let my arms do the braking. My knee stopped being the first thing to hit the ground. That was the moment I knew they'd earned their place in my pack.

I spent a good part of the first trip stopping to adjust the length. The instructions on the pole are simple: the grip should sit at hip height when your arm hangs naturally. But what works on flat ground feels wrong on a steep climb, and what works on the climb feels wrong on the way down. By the second day I stopped fiddling and found a middle setting that worked for everything. That's the thing about these poles, they give you enough adjustment range to find your own setting.

The knee that used to ache for two days after a descent was ready to go again the next morning. That alone paid for the poles.

A few things surprised me. The grip is comfortable for a full day, even when my hands are sweaty. The cork-like material doesn't slip the way the rubber grips on my old cheap poles did. The wrist straps took me a couple of trips to get used to, but once I figured out how to set them, they took a lot of the load off my fingers. And the flick-lock adjustments have held tight through mud, rain, and a lot of bumps. I've had zero slippage.

The other surprise was how much they helped my back. I carry a TETON Sports Explorer 65L pack on overnight trips, and on the ups, planting the poles and pushing through my arms took pressure off my lower back. I can't say the poles fixed my back, but I can say the difference between a day with them and a day without them is noticeable. I notice it most the morning after.

I also used them on a car camping trip with Dana in the Smokies, mostly for balance on a slick trail after rain. They did that job fine too. And when I wasn't using them, they strapped onto my pack without arguing. The baskets came off easily for storage, and the whole pair fits in or on the pack without taking over the inside. My Naturehike Cloud-Up 2 tent and Sawyer Squeeze filter still had their spots.

Are they perfect? No. The twist-lock style on some other poles is quicker to adjust, and the BLACK DIAMOND flick locks take a little more effort when you're in a hurry. The aluminum build is heavier than carbon, though not by a lot, and if you're counting every ounce on a thru-hike, you might want to look at the carbon version. For what I do, weekend trips and a week a year, the trade-off is worth it. They feel solid, and solid matters more to me than saving a few ounces.

One more thing worth mentioning: the tips. The carbide tips have dug into rock and hard dirt without showing much wear. On slick rock they don't grab like rubber, but they don't slide either. For the kind of trails I hike, that's the right trade-off. I replaced the tips on my old poles every season. These are still the original ones.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I'd tell you this: if your knees talk to you on the downhills, stop ignoring them. You don't need to be a thru-hiker to use trekking poles. You just need to be tired of bracing yourself on every step. Buy a decent pair, set them to the right length, and use them for a season. The BLACK DIAMOND Trail Poles are the ones I'd buy again, and I don't say that about much gear. They're not complicated. They just do the job and keep doing it.