A Walmart backup buy turned into years of resort laps and ski touring. They are flimsy, imperfect, and way better than they have any right to be for under $30.
What do you really need out of your poles? If they have handles, tips, and baskets, you can use them to ski, so do you really need to spend $200 on fancy, high-performance poles? Well, yes, sometimes it is worth getting nice equipment, but sometimes it’s also nice to get something that’s dirt cheap and does the job well enough.
The Ozark Trail adjustable trekking poles cost less than $30, you can get them in any Walmart, and they’ll get you about 99% of the function of better ski poles for about 20% of the price. I picked up my pair after falling on and snapping one of my expensive carbon ski touring poles. I needed a new set of poles before the next stop on my road trip, and as an unemployed ski bum, I didn’t feel like dropping the money on something fancy. A quick stop at the closest Walmart and I was good to go. Those cheap poles served me well for many years of both touring and resort skiing. I won’t say I was impressed with them so much as I realized how little you really need out of your poles, but they do have a lot of selling points:
They’re adjustable, so no need to pick the right size. The adjustment also is nice for touring, when you’ll want to lengthen them on the uphill and shorten them for the downhill. The extended grip allows you to choke up a bit on sidehills.
Extra grips. I extended the grip even more with hockey tape.
They’re reasonably lightweight at 10 oz each; about the same as any aluminum adjustable touring pole. The grip is comfortable and the straps are easy to adjust. And, again, they’re cheap. The low price means I don’t feel the need to baby them at all, and I’m not particularly upset when I wipe out and bend them some more, or lose them in powder.
Of course, you get what you pay for. The material and build quality is noticeably sub-par. The flip locks between each section failed in their second season of use, and I had to glue them back on.
Gorilla glue holding the flip locks on.
I suspect the aluminum used is weaker than in nicer poles: they seem more prone to bending when I wipe out on them (although I still prefer that to a carbon pole, which would just snap.) The strap adjustment mechanism has worn out to the point that the straps will gradually lengthen during use. And they don’t come with powder baskets, just small ones that wouldn’t be very useful in any depth of soft snow; while they are easy to swap out, it’s a bit of a caveat on the low price. And, if you’re using them for touring, they lack the hook on the handle that many backcountry poles have for flipping your toe binding lever up.
For all those reasons, I did eventually upgrade my ski touring poles. But for resort skiing, I still mostly use my good old Walmart poles. They get the job done.
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