Trekking Poles

My lower back often starts to hurt when I am out hiking; I suspect that I don’t stand up straight all the time and when I don’t, my back starts to hurt, and the situation seems to be unrecoverable once it starts. I bought some Trekking Poles and hope they will help me keep myself straight.

I’ve done a few short walks with them, and they seem to help. On my first test walk, I adjusted them several times. The shortest adjustment of the poles did not work at all…my back bothered me immediately. The other two adjustments worked great...effectively stopping my backache from the shorter poles! That’s an excellent result since I now can adjust my poles and (maybe) get some relief from back pain.

We have registered for another birding festival and that will be the first field test of the trekking poles. I’ll use a photo vest instead of a backpack (with my water bottle in the back pouch) and learn to use the wristbands to control the polls while I am using my camera or binoculars. I am savoring the prospect of hiking/walking with a lot less pain than I had during the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago.