Hiking sticks at trailheads

[rocksnrolls]

Several times when starting out at trailheads, I've seen some really nice walking sticks around. Sometimes on the ground, sometimes leaning on the tralihead sign. Some looked like someone had put alot of effort into shaping them. What's the etiquette on borrowing/taking them? Use them however you want? Only use them if you plan to return to the same trailhead and then leave it where you found it? Get your own damn stick?

 

[Camper58]

I've noticed them many times too. I use my own wooden stick made for me by my wife and kids, but I imagine that good natured folks leave them there for the next hiker to use if needed. If I needed one, I would use it for my hike and leave it at whatever trailhead I finished at. I would try to leave more than one if I could.

 

[rhihn]

Before I switched to metal poles I would often find a stick to use in the woods. Although on occasion I would become attached to them and would keep them, I just as often would leave one there for the next person. Usually that's how they came to be there. A quick check around the trailhead and register can often tell you if they were left there from past hikers or were about to be used. Sometimes I've seen a stash of a half-dozen sticks at popular trailheads.

 

[Artex]

I concur. Most likely someone had used the stick(s), liked it and left it for whoever else to use.

 

[spider solo]

I would say "all the above"
I forgot my favorite hiking stick when leaving the trail head one day.
About a month or so later I went up the Mnt again, this time from a different direction, and lo and behold just as I was leaving Carter Hut after a short lunch I noticed my hiking stick mixed in with a collection of others in the entrance way!
Well that about made my day.
I realized my stick was hiking the mnt with or with out me...having a life of it's own.
Like an old friend I reclamed it all excited about finding it...though I think people thought.."that fellow sure does get plenty excited about a stick...."

 

[audrey]

I have my own poles now (usually use just one), but I am grateful when I find sturdy sticks at dicey river crossings that require sticks in both hands, so now I always leave them where others can find and use them.

 

[Peakbagr]

I've always avoided natural hiking sticks. Not 'cause they aren't handy.
I'd always been told that unless it was hardwood, if one snaps when you really are putting some weight on it, it will send you flying.

 

[Stan]

Whew, I'm glad to hear all this. I was beginning to get spooked by all these hiking sticks meeting me at the trail. Tread softly and leave a nice stick.

 

[dropack]

Do any of you recall that someone use to carve walking staffs that were very beautiful and leave them on trails mostly at bridge sites in massachusetts for hikers to find and use. I have run into two hikers at different times with these walking staffs both were very pleased to have found one.

 

[Double Bow]

Being a thoroughbred New England Yankee, I had myself a little tradition that I started as a teen. I used to walk in the forrest near the home I grew up in and as I was walking, I would look for sticks of good length and diameter. I wouldn't measure or anything, just eyeball it. If I saw one that looked good, I would pick it up and swing it against an oak. If it broke, it was no good. If it didn't break, I would take it home, whittle the bark and skin off, sand it smooth and put it in the attic to dry.

I put a lot of care into those sticks. They each had a personality. Then a made one for a hiking friend and I wrote a passage from Walden (my favorite)on it: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I gave this to him senior year of high school. We parted ways that summer. He went off to UNH and I to a school in VA. Early that fall, I got a call from home telling me that my friend had been on sitting on a railing on the roof of a building and that he had fallen, hitting his head on the pavement, and died. I stopped making those sticks. That was the last one...

 

[dropack]

I wonder if people are still passing those stcks on I'd like to think so.

 

[RGF1]

I've always avoided natural hiking sticks. Not 'cause they aren't handy.
I'd always been told that unless it was hardwood, if one snaps when you really are putting some weight on it, it will send you flying.

Peakbagr, You are right soft wood when green or dry will snap and cause more of a problem than they solve. If it is a hard wood it is probably safe unless it is old and rotting. . If you have the time on your hands hickory or Oak make for durable tough poles . I have seen both types of wood stop a 40 caliber round . Tough wood . allo the grain looks very nice when you finsh carving it .
As for finding them If i had to use one And It was near a place that a pole or poles would be useful . I would use it than leave it . . But I have poles so I just look and wonder ho might have made it .

 

[woodstrider]

Hiking Sticks at trailheads

I don't use a pole in the summer, but I may pick up a stick. I leave it at the end of my hike- otherwise, what am I going to do- take it home with me.

Those sticks are left there for the next person to come along to use.

Once at a trail head in the Adirondacks we found several sticks that had been carved and left in a small pile at the trailhead. We each took one on the way in, appreciating the effort and skill that went into there creation. I still have mine. Thanks- whoever you are.