>>1309309>You can still use your hands with your walking sticksI see soo many hikers dropping their poles mid stride to swat mosquitos or blackflies.
>not built for walking downhill for hours with a heavy packUnlike people have been doing since forever? I never said they don't take force of your knees, they do torque them though, knees are meant to take weight in one direction which is why people can carry heavy things just fine, but they don't twist. Any force into the ground that is not through the knee joint directly will put a twisting force on your knee. Walking sticks also keep you from developing the necessary muscles and connective tissue so that when you do fall it is easier to hurt yourself.
>Poles let your arms act as legs and you should be using them for 95% of your hike unless it's scrambling.I think this is where we really differ in opinion, walking sticks are useful for only about 5% of a hike (unless maybe you have long downhills on mule graded trails or swamps/marshland) otherwise it's flat, and there's no point, or it's too steep, too uneven, narrow, etc to use poles. I find by keeping my momentum I can avoid stress on my knees and poles interfere with that.
>can't bring a bike on any significant backpacking trail. What is the great divide? But you're right though, that you probably shouldn't to respect the trail rules/environment.
