This weekend Oklahoma Slim brought along his new Leki Corklight (feature photo) trekking poles on a conditioning hike in Kyle Canyon to attempt to summit Charleston Peak. I had a chance to check them out as well and here’s what I found out, as well as Oklahoma’s concerns dispelled about the Cristallos that I use.
After witnessing Oklahoma’s Jesban Flyingbird trekking poles fail him on a decent from Griffith Peak last year, I have been insistently busting his balls on him getting decent poles. And not just return the Jesbans to Amazon for another pair like he did, but Black Diamonds or Lekis. He wound up getting Leki Corklights rather than the Cristallo, because he felt the Cristallos’ Aergon handles would be slippery when you sweat on them – or some shit or another reason. Totally untrue. In the past year with the Cristallos, then are great. Your hand has a great grip on the rubber grips.
On contrary in the concern of grips, the Corklight handles are smaller and thinner than the Cristallos. To the point where I couldn’t get used to them while trying them. The cork didn’t seem to absorb any additional shock either. The Corklights are definitely lighter. They are sturdy as well, even though you might feel that they are shakey when you use them side by side with the Cristallos. But it is a German product, and like almost all of them, Leki products are pretty bad ass.
There just was enough of a difference between what I am accustom to (Cristallo), that I would prefer the solid feeling, larger handle (by about 3 cm or almost an inch) let alone the circumference of the handle of itself and better fit grip of the Cristallos. The weight savings isn’t that much where I would get the Corklights. I would actually recommend them for a smaller woman’s hand. But the Speedlock technolgy of both sets of trekking poles are pretty bad ass. I have yet to run into any problems with the Cristallos. Snow, ice, mud, and dirty… Just throw a little water on them and any dirt that is caked on will come off.
So the initial first part of the review is that the Corklights won’t give you the confidence, nor a average sized man’s handle comfort as the Cristallos do. We’ll post a video next week with a visual comparison of the two poles.