Anyone who knows me knows that I’m happiest when I’m on the trail in my hiking boots. I first fell in love with hiking on a three-day trek across Lapland when I was a teenager. My first job out of college took me to Vermont, where I roamed the Green Mountains in the summer, then I graduated on to the towering Rocky Mountains during my 11 years living in Vail, Colorado. Four years ago, I moved home to Scotland and nowadays you can usually find me on the West Highland Way, up a Munro or if I’m lucky, over in the Alps.
For a long time, it never occurred to me to use trekking poles on my hikes other than during steep descents from Colorado 14ers, where I might use a single ski pole to take the strain off my knees and navigate boulder fields. I didn’t necessarily think they weren’t worthwhile, but I suppose the only people I saw using them were old – often around town for that matter – and since I wasn’t old, I didn’t think to try them.
