The walking stick was suggested by a friend of mine. I have never used one for hiking, but thought I would give one a try. A practice run for a couple of miles with my pack and a walking stick showed a couple of things. First, the original walking stick I tried didn't work very well. It was a Stansport folding stick. That model folded up really small and made it easy to fit into my GHB box at work. However I found it was not nearly sturdy enough and tended to come apart at the joints if I swung it hard.

What I did like though, was the walking stick provided me with a measure of self defense (when a dog leaped out at me), provided a way to see how deep some water was before actually stepping in it, and provided a way to whack the forever cursed blackberry vines out of my way as I walked. This last the folding walking stick was particular poor at.

I am now evaluating other walking sticks to see what might work best. Since I will be walking through an almost entirely urban environment, I can't count on simply picking up a dead branch to use.