Also, if you twist an ankle--or worse--while you are out there, it will make it a whole lot easier to get home.

I have a pair of REI collapsible hiking poles that live in the trunk of the car. I once hefted a very light wooden staff that was carved from spruce, and I remembered that spruce is the favorite material for wing spars in wooden aircraft for its strength-to-weight ratio.

Colin Fletcher said that a staff "turns me from an unsteady biped into a steady triped". He would cut something at the start of his trek.