Recently I wrote about a single hiking staff being better than a pair of trekking poles. I’ve had a Tracks Hiking Staff (no longer made) for over 30 years. And as happens with older gear, the top knob separated from the camera mount hardware.
(See the two pictures on the left below). You’ll notice there is a 1/4 inch coarse thread protruding from the top of the second picture. This is a standard size camera mount. That fitting also screws into the wooden know (on the very left).
There is (or was) a female fitting in the wooden knob that allowed the knob to be screwed onto the camera mount. The picture below shows how the fitting in the knob separated and stayed on the camera mount.
Below: the thin threaded part (left) screws into the top of the pole, and the thicker threaded end into the wooden cap. The threads in the wooden cap are completely gone with age.
Below I have removed the wood knob fitting (at the bottom of the picture) from the camera mount fitting. One option would have been to drill and thread a larger hole in the knob, and then find a larger fitting for the knob.
I really didn’t want to take the time and turn this into a huge complicated project. I went to eBay and found this hard plastic hiking pole knob for $7.60 including tax and shipping. There were two specifications I needed to fulfill: one it had to have a 1/4 inch coarse threaded insert and the diameter of the inside had to be about 32 mm. This one is 35 mm. The black knob below on the right is the new one.
Now I had all the parts. First task was to apply some thread locker to the threaded part that goes into the top of the pole. Thread locker allows a tight fit without the need of washers or other fasteners, and it also allows the threaded part to be removed (with a little bit of effort) if needed. This way, I remove the knob to use the camera mount, the whole fitting will stay in the top of the pole.
Adapter to Make the Hiking Staff a Tall Tent Pole
As I have written several times, I used a pair of trekking poles for a couple of years. By the 2012 I mostly didn’t use any kind of pole at all. Occasionally I would use a single hiking staff. So most of the time I would just bring separate poles for my shelters, most often my TrailStar or Hexamid.
In 2015 I replace the Hexamid with a Six Moon Designs Deschutes CF. This link to the Deschutes has a lot of information on tent stakes, guyline tensioners, and carbon fiber tent pole options. Now that I am taking my hiking staff on most trips again, it can double as a tent pole, which saves weight. Some times, on what I call micro-trips, I will bring the staff and a tent pole. On these kind of trips, I often leave my shelter set up for a day or two, while doing little exploratory hikes during the day and I can take the hiking staff on these trips. The hiking staff is adjustable from 41 to 57 inches and works with these shelters discussed.
However, with the Chouinard Pyramid and the recently purchased Black Diamond Mega Light, the Tracks Hiking Staff won’t work as a tent pole since both these shelters need a pole of at least 66 inches, and sometimes I want one taller. Also the dedicated poles that come with these shelters aren’t light:
- Black Diamond Mega Light center pole = 11 5/8 ounces
- Chouinard center pole = 10 3/8 ounces
To put this into perspective, the Mega Light shelter weighs just 26 ounces.
Pole Extender
Several years ago I solved this extra weight by making a pole jack to extend the Tracks Hiking Staff by 15 inches. It is just a piece of aluminum tubing from an old shelter that allows me to use the staff as a pole up to 72 inches, which is perfect.
I purchased a 3/8″ coupling nut to fit into one end of the pole. The thread of this nut is the same size as the threaded tip of my hiking staff.
The nut fits snugly into the pole extender and I slightly crimped the pole with a pair of channel locks to keep it absolutely secure. The pictures below show the set-up sequence.
