[at-l] Hiking Stick/monopod

[Bob C." <ellen@clinic.net (Bob C.)]

My  Komperdell,  combined  cork  pole tip, strap and compass arrived in the mail
yesterday. Many thanks to whoever made the suggestion. BTW, the price has jumped
from $10 to $12.

I  immediately  went  to  the tiny intermittent stream that divides my two acres
from  an  acre  of  land  trust  land donated by my neighbor. I cut a slim alder
sapling  about  an inch in diameter, trimmed the branches off and cut out of the
middle the straightest five-foot section.

 Ideally,  I  should  have  done this a month ago so it would dry naturally. But
 being  in  a rush to try a new toy, I stuck the "top" end in a warming oven for
 an hour or so.

 I  then  took  a  1/4-20  hex  head  bolt,  three-quarters of an inch long, and
 tightened to it a 1/4-20 hex head nut (total cost 9 cents) so that I ended with
 a  half  inch  of  combined  hex  head bolt and hex nut, with a quarter inch of
 thread  remaining.  I then drilled a half inch deep and half inch round hole in
 the  now  somewhat  cooked end of my alder stick, coated the inside of the hole
 with  five  minute  epoxy  glue and inserted the nut and bolt, leaving only the
 quarter inch of thread protruding. In the meantime, I attached to the bottom of
 the  stick  a  soft  rubber  crutch  tip (57 cents) from our local ACE Hardware
 Store.

 For  those  who  may be puzzled by this description, the advantage of using the
 nut is only to provide more surface for the epoxy to work on.

 Then came the hard part. I had to force myself to wait an hour for the epoxy to
 set.  Luckily  someone on the list was calling me "holier than thou" which kept
 me busy the required time.

 The  cork tip went on with no problem, as did my camera. I immediately took the
 stick,  cork  tip,  compass,  strap  and camera for a walk in the meadow that I
 described to the list last night -- and spent 15 minutes watching a beaver play
 in his pond.

 Unfortunately,  I  was  so afraid of scaring the beaver away, I didn't dare use
 the  monopod feature. But I did shoot up all the film left in my camera, though
 it was probably too dark for anything useful to come out.

 Weary