I'm looking for a good set of poles to share with my girlfriend as single walking sticks that will serve double duty as the center pole of our ShangriLa-3. I expect some potentially high winds in areas of Peru and Bolivia, and Patagonia, so I'm not sure carbon fiber is wise. But I've never used anything other than aluminum poles, so I have no experience with the strength and flex of carbon for this purpose. I also can't replace any UL techy gear easily in SudAmerica, thus durability is a must.

I made a mistake selling my BD Flicklocks. Oh well.

cheers,
-Michael

I was just going to suggest BD Flicklocks. That's what i use as a center pole for my oware. and you can buy extra bottom sections.

I've used BD poles with a piece of 0.7 oz sawed off bottom section to connect them together. It was fast, easy, and worked well with my SL3.

But, I think you need the sturdy supplied pole and carefully thought-out guylines for those conditions. I can easily flex the trekking poles with moderate pressure, but not the supplied pole.

Edited by AndyF on 05/11/2011 15:34:26 MDT.

I have never used one but the LuxuryLite hiking stick may work for you. They are modular so I think you could combine sections of both poles to use for your SL3. But I have no idea if they would be durable enough for your uses. And it might be hard to fly if you got the pole section with the knife.