[at-l] On Poles

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 05:18 PM 11/16/2003 -0500, Martin Fors wrote:
>In your experience, do
>rubber tipped poles purchase well on wet logs or wet rocks?  As well as
>carbide tipped poles?  rusty

I'm not Weary but I've tried both. Rubber tips are *not* good on wet wood. 
This includes freshly peeled green wood even if it isn't raining. Planted 
firmly, a carbide tip will bite into the wood. On dry weathered wood rubber 
tips work okay but bog bridges are wet as often as not because they tend to 
be in wet shaded areas. On granular surfaced rocks they work very well when 
the rocks are dry and well enough of wet rocks *unless* the rocks have 
lichen or algae on them as they are inclined to in streams. I haven't tried 
them on smooth surfaced rock (shale and the like).

Get softer rubber when possible. It wears out faster but it grips better on 
most surfaces. If using a wood pole, your friendly local hardware store 
will have any size you need. You may not have any choice if buying tips to 
fit Lekis, Komperdel or equivalent. Rubber tips for Komperdel are available 
from www.ems.com (or in their stores). I suspect they would also fit Lekis 
but I don't know. Campmor has them for Tracks poles. It was a Tracks pole 
BTW that had a steel tip which I ended up swapping for a carbide tip. I 
wasn't impressed with the grip or the durability of the Tracks rubber tips 
either. Often it's simply a matter of wisely choosing where to plant your 
pole but when the wise choices become too scarce, I pull off the rubber tip 
and stick it in my pocket.