Exped Alpine Lite Trekking Poles

Great set of trekking poles
October 19, 2010

These are a great set of trekking poles. They are very light and once i figured out how to tighten the pole so it would stay at a certain height they are very easy to use. The only potential problem with this twist-lock is i could see that if you were really going through some rugged backcountry and up and down and through boulder fields and stuff the twist lock probably wouldnt hold quite as well. Fortunately most of us are not doing this and so they work very well. The grips are very comfortable and dont leave a bunch of rubber residue on your hands like some other trekking poles with rubber grips. The grip also goes down the pole about 10 inches and so if you need a slight height adjustment for a short time, you just move your hand down on the grip. This was surprsingly useful. Weight wise i think they are in a very good spot, and are lighter then a lot of poles. Some poles like the ones from Gossamer gear are lighter but are one length and are carbon fibre and so will snap and not just bend if torqued too much. When i was looking to buy trekking poles i was surprised at how few companies sold these exped poles. In my opinion they easily compare to any of the brands like komperdell and leki.