Lightweight Trekking Poles Help Hikers Strike a Balance : Retail: Already popular in Europe, the equipment is catching on among outdoor types in America.

Businessman Greg Wozer figures it’s time more hikers take a cue from four-footed climbers like mountain goats and learn the advantages of having a couple of extra legs.

Toward that end, Wozer’s company, Leki-Sport USA, advocates a return to quadrupedalism with its line of walking staffs and trekking poles. Already popular in Europe, the poles are catching on among outdoor types in the United States.

They’re basically glorified ski poles adapted to provide extra balance and support for hiking, as well as snowshoeing, fitness walking and roller-blading. They can even be used as wading staffs for fishing or fording streams.

“People have been accustomed to walking with a staff since Moses,” said Wozer, who runs the U.S. distributor for Leki-Sport Lenhart GmbH, the German manufacturer of the poles.

“This is the next thing beyond a walking stick. If you look at a mountain goat or anything else on four legs, it gives you added security and balance,” Wozer said.

The poles are made of sturdy, lightweight aluminum or graphite. Adjustable in height, the poles have shock absorbers to cushion the impact of a hike. They range in price from $74 to $109 a pair.

Dr. Robert Sleight of the Tucson, Ariz.-based Walking Assn., which encourages people to walk more, said he’s unfamiliar with trekking poles but that a staff or anything else that improves balance makes sense.

“The No. 1 danger to pedestrians is the automobile. No. 2 is falling down,” Sleight said. “A staff can give you an extra leg that helps you walk on uneven surfaces or ice or snow or mud.”

Besides keeping people on their toes, trekking poles save wear and tear on feet, knees, backs and hips, Wozer said. Because the poles get the arms involved, they give hikers a full-body workout and increase speed and endurance, he said.

“I call them turbo sticks because you can hike so much faster with them,” said Scott Messina of Aspen Alpine Guides in Colorado, which provides trekking poles to its clients on Rocky Mountain hikes.

Trekking poles caught on in Europe about 15 years ago. Leki sold about 150,000 pairs there last year and also exports them around the world, particularly to Japan and Australia, said Andreas Kofke, the company’s marketing manager in Germany.

“Nowadays, you see them on every corner in Europe,” Kofke said.

American guides like Messina have been using trekking poles for 10 years or more, but it’s only in the past couple of years they have caught on with a wider public.

“Americans are real slow to change. The Europeans, when it comes to technology that helps them in sports, they seem quicker to adapt,” said Bob Woodward, a user of trekking poles and publisher of SNEWS, a trade publication on outdoor equipment.

Five years ago, Leki-Sport USA, based in suburban Buffalo, sold almost no trekking poles. Now, they make up about half of the yearly $3 million in sales for the company, which also markets Leki ski poles.

The company expects to sell 30,000 pairs of trekking poles in the United States this year, 10 times the number sold three years ago. Their popularity has prompted at least three other companies to begin selling them in the United States.

“I think this product will continue to grow,” said Paul Clements, product designer for Cascade Designs Inc. of Seattle, which added trekking poles to its line of outdoor equipment two years ago. “It’s one of the few pieces of hardware that has uses in all four seasons of the year.”

Wozer said he’s not worried about Leki’s new competition. He estimates there are 70 million Americans involved in hiking, skiing, backpacking or other outdoor activities where trekking poles might be used. Elderly mall-walkers have been using the poles, he said.

“It’s a huge market, 70 million people active on foot,” Wozer said. “If you got 100 of them into a room, and we could convince just one to try them, that’s 700,000 pairs of poles right there.”