Trekking poles are one of the few pieces of gear that can genuinely change how your body handles a long day in the mountains: they spread the load to your arms and shoulders, take a meaningful share of the impact off your knees on descents, and give you four points of contact when the trail turns awkward. But carrying poles and using poles are different things. Used badly, they are just extra weight that tangles in bushes and trips you on rocks. Used well, they feel like an extension of your stride. The difference is technique, and it takes about an hour to learn.
Do You Actually Need Them?
Poles earn their place when your knees are the limiting factor — long descents, heavy packs, or a history of joint complaints — and on terrain where balance matters: scree, snow, mud, and river crossings. Many hikers who swore they would never use them convert on their first multi-day trek with a loaded pack. If you are unsure, borrow a pair for a hilly day hike before buying.
Getting the Length Right
Start on flat ground: with the tips on the ground a few inches in front of your toes, your elbow should form roughly a right angle. That is your baseline. Then adjust for the slope, which is the whole point of telescoping poles: shorten them by about five to ten centimetres for sustained climbs, so you can push down through them without your hands ending up above your shoulders, and lengthen them by the same amount for descents, so you can plant them ahead and let your arms help lower you with each step. Readjusting takes seconds and is worth doing every time the gradient changes properly — a pole set for flat ground is wrong on both a climb and a descent.
The Strap Trick
The most common beginner error is gripping the poles like ski poles with the strap just hanging there. The strap is doing real work. Slide your hand up through the loop from below, then bring it down onto the grip — the strap should run across the back of your hand and between thumb and forefinger. Now you can relax your grip and push down through the strap on each plant, and if you stumble, your hand releases cleanly instead of twisting with the pole. A relaxed hand on a good strap beats a white-knuckle grip every time.
Finding the Rhythm
Walk the way cross-country skiers move: opposite arm to opposite leg. Left foot forward, right pole plants; right foot forward, left pole plants. Plant the tip roughly beside your leading foot, a few inches out from your body — not jammed against your ankle, where it becomes a tripping hazard, and not flung wide, where it wastes energy. Keep your arms and elbows close to your sides and let the poles swing naturally with your stride. If you fall out of sync — same-side planting, which makes you sway — just lift the tips off the ground for a few steps and restart. The rhythm becomes automatic quickly; most people stop thinking about it within an hour.
Uphill and Downhill Technique
Going up, plant the poles slightly ahead and push down through them as you step — think of propelling yourself forward with your arms, not pulling yourself up the hill. On steep stair-like sections, plant both poles on the upper level and step up between them. Going down, the job reverses: the poles become brakes and balance aids. Plant them ahead of you before each step, keep your knees slightly bent, and never let the poles get behind your body — a pole behind you cannot catch a forward fall. On very steep descents, planting both poles ahead and taking small steps between plants is slow but extremely secure.
River Crossings and Soft Ground
Poles are at their most valuable at water crossings. Face upstream, move sideways slowly, and use a pole to probe the depth and the footing before committing your weight — a submerged boulder hole is exactly the kind of surprise a probe prevents. If your poles have baskets, fit them before snow, deep mud or loose scree; they stop the tips sinking and give you a platform to push against. Probe snow bridges and soft ground the same way you probe water: the tip tells you what your boot is about to find out.
When to Put Them Away
Poles are a liability on proper scrambles, ladders, fixed chains and via ferratas, where you need your hands free and a planted pole can lever you off balance. Collapse them and strap them to your pack. They are also more hindrance than help in dense vegetation, where they snag constantly. Knowing when to stow them is part of good technique — the best pole users are the ones whose poles spend the hard sections on their packs.
Common Mistakes
The greatest hits: poles left at one length all day; a death-grip that leaves hands and forearms aching; planting tips right next to your boots; swinging them wide like a tightrope walker’s balance bar; and never actually pushing through the straps, which turns the poles into decorative accessories. The test experienced hikers use is simple: if the poles are making the walking easier, you are doing it right.
Arjun Mehta is the pen name behind Mountains Bliss — practical mountain-travel guides with routes, costs, seasons and safety notes, researched from real trekker discussions and cross-checked before publishing. No sponsored posts, ever.
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