What is the Best Walking Stick to Use When Hiking or Geocaching?

Wooden sticks are one of the oldest tools man has ever used. We kept using them throughout the many changes brought about by civilization because they are still useful. Whether your walking stick is a cane or a telescoping aluminum pole with a nylon strap and compass in the top, they are are meant to provide support when needed. Walking sticks are not just for the injured or elderly. They can be invaluable in helping you keep your balance and work your way across uncertain ground.

General advice for a stick that isn't meant to function as a cane is for it to be about six inches taller than your elbow. Use it to support you when your balance is precarious; feel for unexpected holes in the terrain beneath fallen leaves and dead grass; remove the artistic cobweb an enterprising spider built across the trail last night; and, gently check crevices, logs, and leafy piles to see if you've found a hidden cache.

One of the handiest types of walking stick, found in both wooden staffs and telescoping poles, come with a compass embedded. If your GPS runs out of batteries and you no longer have a working electronic compass, that compass in your stick can make navigating out of the back country an easier task.

It is always good to have a strap on your stick or staff. Besides anchoring the stick to you if you let go of the handle, straps can help shift some of your weight from your hands to your wrists.

Some people insist a rubber cane type end is essential, letting you keep a better connection to the surface on which you are traveling. Others think a rubber tip can be precarious on wet rock or in the rain. Many handmade sticks merely have a flat bottom. And, there are sticks that have steel tips or ferrules to set themselves firmly into minute crevices in the trail or rock. For some people, those steel tips seem invasive, as they leave a trail of minute holes behind you in the dirt. However, one good rain will fill in any tip dents from your trek.

There are high tech lightweight collapsible sticks with sections corded together like tent poles, which you can pack into a pouch in

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A middle ground between the wooden stick with leather strap and the high tech folding pole is a telescoping stick from Coleman with a steel trekking tip and nylon strap, made of aluminum, with integrated compass, for $14.99.

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Some sticks have an end which can be unscrewed at the top revealing a standard camera mount. Others have a whistle built in, or a bell attached, to let wildlife know someone is heading their way. Shorter sticks with curved ends to rest your hand are available, and others with crooks to make a shepherd proud. There are styles and prices for almost everyone. However, despite sticks with soundmakers, carbon steel tips, and collapsible sections, remember: Your primary purpose here is to get a stick which will make your walks and hikes easier and safer. The rest is just bells and whistles.

Here is a web page with multiple links to sites selling different walking sticks, staffs, canes, and trekking poles.

And, you can always make your own. I have a couple of walking sticks my grandfather made from straight hickory branches that are at least fifty or sixty years old. He sanded a spot smooth to rest your hand near the top of the stick, drilled a hole about an inch down from the top, and slid in a leather lace. One of them is fitted with a steel collar at the bottom to keep it from splitting with a small hole where he epoxied in a steel tip made from a nail with the head nipped off. He used it hiking into his eighties, and when I use it now, I remember him. He would have loved the high tech treasure hunts of geocaching.