The shorter ski pole

Last week I was told by someone who could be billed as a “ski pole specialist,” that my own 50 inch” Scott poles were too long for me (I'm 5'10” tall). I disputed the assertion but nonetheless listened carefully to the arguments presented to me.

I was basically told that I should at least be skiing with 48” poles, if at all, inferring that 46” might be good enough for me. The pretense given to me was the new carving skis (why?), the fact that poling had lost some of its “polish” in skiing and other nonsense along these lines.

Now let me state how I use my poles so we all understand each others. First, I enjoy skiing steep terrain; sorry, short poles don't work there!

Second, I'm an old “ski fox” and what I've lost in strength, I pick up “cheating” as much as I possibly can and in the super long radius turns I crave for, a long enough pole plays the role of an outrigger and helps me maintain, if not my composure, my standing balance.

Third, when I need to propel myself on snow, to slide from point A to point B, a long enough pole does the job while a shortened one is pure misery.

Finally, I can guess why a pole company might tell these lies like these to its gullible sales force (I've been there before): This could mean a potential 5% saving on material cost, which if you multiply it by quantities in the order of several 100,000 tubes for a manufacturer like Scott, you could get some huge extra profits!