The Descent That Wrecked My Knee

My father-in-law Gary is sixty-six and still out-hikes half the guys I know in their thirties, which is a fact I used to find more annoying than impressive. Last October he talked me into a nine-mile loop out past Big Bend in the Ouachitas, a trail that climbs about 1,800 feet over the first four miles and then gives it all back on the way down. I packed light, figured I'd be fine, and laughed a little when Gary pulled his TrailBuddy poles off the truck bed and started clicking them out to length before we even left the parking lot.

I told him I didn't need poles, that they were for guys with bad knees or people who needed a reason to feel outdoorsy at the trailhead. He just shrugged and said suit yourself. The climb up wasn't bad. It was the descent that got me. Four miles down a rocky switchback trail with a full pack, and somewhere around mile seven my quads just stopped doing what I told them to do. Every step down felt like my legs were absorbing a small drop I hadn't agreed to, and by the last mile I was picking my way down sideways, one hand out for balance, trying not to think about how far we still had to go.

Then it started to drizzle, just enough to slick up a flat granite shelf that crossed the trail about a half mile from the truck. My boot went out from under me and I landed hard on my hip, nothing broken, just knocked the wind and the pride out of me at the same time. Gary was fifteen feet ahead, planting his poles into the rock with each step, moving down that same wet section like it was a sidewalk. He didn't say I told you so. He didn't have to.

By the time we got to the truck my legs were shaking and I was in a mood I didn't love admitting to. Gary wasn't even breathing hard. He handed me a bottle of water and asked, pretty gently for him, whether I still thought the poles were for people who needed a reason to feel outdoorsy. I told him to shut up and asked where he'd bought them.

I'd spent years thinking poles were for other people. Watching Gary walk down that wet rock like it was nothing changed my mind faster than any article could have.

I ordered a pair of TrailBuddy poles that same week, the collapsible aluminum ones Gary had been using, and took them out on a shorter loop near home to get used to them before trying anything steep again. They felt awkward the first mile, my arms doing work my legs were used to doing alone, but by the second mile I'd found a rhythm, planting one on each step down and letting my arms take some of the load instead of my knees.

The real test came in April, back out on a trail with a longer descent, about six miles down with a loaded pack. My legs still worked at the bottom. Not fresh, but nowhere near the shaking mess they'd been that October day with Gary. I'm not going to pretend a pair of trekking poles turns you into a mountain goat, because it doesn't, and I still felt that hike the next morning. But there's a real difference between legs that are tired and legs that are done, and the poles moved me from the second column back into the first.

They're not without their annoyances. The flip-lock clamps loosened on me once on a rocky section and I had to stop and retighten them, which is a two-minute fix but an annoying one when you're mid-stride. And I've caught the tips between rocks a couple times in a way that yanked my wrist harder than I liked. Nothing that's made me want to leave them at home again, but worth knowing before you're twenty feet ahead of whoever you're hiking with.

Gary still gets a kick out of the whole thing. He brings it up almost every trip now, usually right around the steepest part of the descent, and I've stopped arguing with him about it because he's earned the right to say it. My wife thinks it's funny that it took a bruised hip and a wet rock to get through to me, and honestly, she's not wrong to laugh.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you asked me over coffee whether trekking poles are worth carrying, I'd tell you I spent years being the guy who didn't need them, and I was wrong. I'm not saying they'll fix a bad trail day or make you as fast as your father-in-law. What I'm saying is that a set of TrailBuddy poles took real weight off my knees on the way down, and that's why I never hike without them now. If your descents leave you shaking at the truck the way mine used to, that's reason enough to try a pair before your next trip. If you want the longer breakdown of how they've held up over the miles, read the full review, it covers more of the wear and tear than a story like this one can.