RE: [at-l] Hiking Poles/Sticks

["Cora Drake" <cora_drake@hotmail.com>]

Yep.  Hands at half-mast, so to speak, have a better chance of returning 
fluids up the arm than hands just hanging down there.  Also, using arms to 
hike with poles pumps the fluids around which helps reduce pooling some 
more.  Ergometrics tells us to put the pole height where your arm will 
naturally bend at a neat right angle to your bod.  That varies with 
uphill/downhill, but so does everything else.

Anybody else wear bifocals?  Ever have fun figuring just exactly where 
"down" ends?  The effect is worse with graduated bifocals like mine.  A pole 
tip is a tidy depth finder on the downhills.

As for exercise, not only is there the upper body workout while hiking, 
there's all the bending over to pick up the suckers when they fall over 
(just when you thought you dug 'em in good) and the hiking back to the 
shelter to get 'em off the nail you left them on last night.  Or is that 
just me?


>From: "FannyPack - 96GA2ME" <fannypack96@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: datkinso@att.com
>To: at-l@backcountry.net
>Subject: RE: [at-l] Hiking Poles/Sticks
>Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1999 20:11:59 GMT
>
>There was/is an advantage of using hiking poles/sticks that I may have
>missed but here goes.  When NOT using the sticks my hands seem to swell
>quite abit.  When using them they did not swell much.. Any experiences with
>this??
>-FP
>
>
>
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