What's the best way to fly with trekking poles?

I'm thinking collapse them to fit in a section of PVC pipe with taped ends or a FedEx tube and in a duffle bag with the rest of my gear that the airlines may frown on and then check in as baggage

I usually pack everything in a duffel bag and check it. But if you do not have a means of storing the duffel at your end destination the approach won't help much.

thanks, storage won't be a problem on this trip. I was thinking of ways of avoiding damage to the poles, like using PCV pipe or shipping tube.

Oh okay. I wrap the poles with thin closed cell foam (cheap) with duct tape on the outside. Inside the duffel the poles are protected and so is the pack (stuffed). It has worked well so far.....

I thought this was a thread on hang-gliding. Dual use being the goal! :)

Always inside my duffels between tent, pads, sleeping bags and stuff sacks. Kind of in the middle of the duffel. If I have an ice axe as well, I might duct tape the three together. Never had any problem, but never tried with lightweight CF poles, always with heavier duty poles.

Hilarious Mike. Well, you know how windy it can get in Scotland, maybe you have experience flying with trekking poles!

PVC pipe may be a good idea for the CF poles, but if you have collapsible aluminum ones like me, you shouldn't need it. I just keep mine in the middle of my duffel with duct tape on the tips to keep them from ripping my gear.

Flew to Sardinia hand baggage only a few weeks ago, and affected a limp as I walked through security with my 'walking stick'. Worked like a charm, I had to stash the pointy end in the pack carefully, but the one piece CF golf club shaft wasn't a problem.

JJ et al,
I constructed a tube to carry my carbon fixed length poles using threaded PVC. One end has a threaded cap, which I taped for a little extra security (so it wouldn't get too tight or too loose). The other end of the tube I cut to length and glued on a tight fitting end cap. I made a carrying handle out of strapping tape and taped it to the tube. I was travelling in Europe and marked the tube "hiking poles" in English, French, and German.
Checked it with normal baggage.
Tim

Like some others, I have packed them with other gear around them in side a duffle. I also put rubber caps on the ends.

I have thought about how to do it if I didn't want to deal with the duffle at the other end. I have thought about (but not tried yet) packing everything possible inside the pack with the poles in the center, lashing it all around with light twine and then putting it inside a trash compactor bag using duct tape to make the compactor bag snug. The compactor bags are totally invincible but I think they would survive most baggage handlers and I carry one anyway as part of my gear.

I use a cardboard box for everything that I cannot carry on including poles. Then once I get where I am going I just throw out the box and when I return home I just find a local store and ask for another. Sometimes you have to cut the box up to make it the right size.

I recommend against the wax & feather method...I seem to recall a BPL member way back (Ike Russ, was his name I think) had trouble with that.

I've thought about attaching them to the load lifters on my backpack shoulder straps, tips facing outward and each attached to a corner of my tarp or tent fly (depending on the wind conditions expected). Next I would fasten the corresponding corners of my tarp or tent fly to the outer lace grommet on my footwear w/ Spectra cord.

I use cardboard boxes too...A fellow climber friend of mine and I tried to hang glide using wood + cardboard, but had mixed results. Trekking poles probably would have made all the difference in the world, but I don't think they had been invented yet. I don't think we could run fast enough to get enough lift either...we were only about 7 or 8 years old.

Edited by biointegra on 05/23/2009 22:20:10 MDT.

I'm on a year round trip, flying a lot with poles. It depends where you are. For instance, I flew today in Nepal and just had them on the outside of my backpack. The only security question asked was "do you have a lighter?"

In the states... Domestic and International... I've flown many times with them in my carry on pack. I put them inside. And I wrap the tips with duct tape and some cut off fingers from leather gloves. It's just to protect the other stuff in my pack and the pack itself from punctures. I've seen regulations that you are not allowed to fly with poles. And I've seen them that you are allowed to. I've flown with them many times and even had my pack inspected and them OKed (at SFO).

I put my poles in the bottom of a small duffle. Rubber covers were used to cover the sharp ends. I have also lashed them to the sides of a checked backpack with coverings over the pointed ends.With fixed length poles, I checked them in a cardboard box made to ship a golf club. I have also mailed them home in a tube found at the post office. You have to buy two tubes, however. The longest tube did not quite fit a 120 cm pole.