The use of adjustable trekking poles for hiking has become incredibly popular in the last decade, and rightly so. Using poles to share the load helps take stress off your knees and lower joints and puts your arms, shoulders, and chest to work. Poles also improve your endurance so you can better enjoy your hiking experience and extend the amount of time and distance you can hike in a day.

Trekking poles provide contact with the ground for more secure footing and upright stability, helpful for stream crossings and climbing and descending steep slopes with a pack on your back. Using poles can also help you keep a quicker pace on the trail, with the ticking of the pole tips against the ground providing a comforting rhythm as you stride along.

Trail Repair
Today’s trekking poles are resilient, thanks to the high tensile strength of their heat-treated aluminum, but shafts still break and locking mechanisms still fail sometimes. If you want to continue to use a broken pole for the remainder of your hike, here’s how to fix it on the trail.

If a break occurs in the middle of the shaft, you can fashion a splint using a downed or dead tree branch and duct tape, says Greg Wozer, vice president of trekking pole manufacturer LEKI USA. Whittle the stick down to tightly fit inside the pole sleeve, put the sections together, and wrap with duct tape. Although the pole won’t have the same load-bearing capacity, you’ll at least have it to help with balance and stability.

With twist-lock or internal locking poles, if a break occurs at the lower joint, unlock the pole and use a multitool to remove what’s left of the broken section. The pole will be shorter but still usable. A break at the upper joint can’t be repaired. Find a stick on the ground to supplement your good pole and carry on. The broken pole pieces should, of course, be packed out.

If one of your poles fails to lock or adjust properly it means that the internal plastic expander doesn’t have enough contact with the shaft, Wozer says; it’s friction between the two that provides the holding power. The fix is easy: Pull the shafts apart and make sure the expander is positioned at the end of the threaded portion of the shaft. Reinsert the pole section, expander first. Before pushing all the way in, turn it slightly to engage the expander with the shaft.

With external locking poles, a break at the joint on the lower shaft is easier to fix. Simply open the locking mechanism on the outside of the pole, remove the broken piece, reinsert the remaining lower section and close the lock.

Pole tips can get caught between rocks or in other tight spots and break. Fortunately, the tip ferrule is designed to break before the pole does. Tips are easily replaced in the field, provided you carry a spare. To remove the tip, hit the collar in line with the length of the pole and it should come straight off.

Regular Maintenance
Ideally trekking poles should be disassembled at the end of each use and air dried to help remove condensation that can build up inside the shaft and cause corrosion. Doing this as often as possible will extend the life of your poles.

Wozer recommends brushing the inside of the pole shafts and the threads to remove oxidation and dirt at least once a year. Special cleaning kits are available. Under no circumstances should you use any lubricants or solvents to clean your poles. However careful you are, the oil will migrate to the expander and cause failure due to lack of friction.