Leki Cressida FX Carbon Trekking Poles are folding trekking poles made with cork handles and lightweight carbon fiber shafts, providing excellent strength and durability. Designed specifically for women (and people with a smaller stature), they have a shorter length and smaller hand grips than men’s poles. The folding design of these hiking poles adds to their versatility, allowing for easy storage and transportation. It’s worth emphasizing that these are adjustable-length poles since some folding poles are fixed length, making them difficult to use for hiking and setting up a trekking pole tent if the required lengths don’t match.

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• Adjustable length: Yes
• Handles: Cork
• Shafts: Carbon fiber
• Locking mechanism: Lever lock
• Sizing:
• Collapsed length:
• Weight:
• Includes:  carbide tips for trails, trekking baskets for 3 season use
• Pros: Cork handles with Cork extensions, hand-adjustable lever locks, folding for storage,

While I’ve used trekking poles in the past, I’ve never really felt at ease with them and often ended up carrying them more on my hikes and backpacking trips than using them. That is until I tried these Leki Cressida FX Carbon Trekking Poles! I really like the fact that they’re sized for women and smaller individuals, both in terms of length and grip size. They fit my hands perfectly and they’re the perfect height.

The grips are more narrowly sized for smaller female hands.

Made with carbon fiber, they’re very lightweight to use, but also very stiff and provide great support. The handles are made with cork and have a contoured surface with slight indentations for my fingers and a kind of ledge at the base that prevents my hand from sliding down the shaft, without feeling confining in any way. They have a lightweight, silky feeling strap that’s unpadded and barely noticeable. You hardly feel it at all.

The top of the handle is flat which lets me rest my palm on them when descending a slope for more security, with a slanted head that I can use to flip up the televator wires on my MSR Lightning Ascent Snowshoes. I really love this feature. It makes it so convenient to use with snowshoes with compatible heel lift wires.

The longest folded segment is about 17” long.

The shafts have a folding half and an adjustable telescoping half that lets you collapse them for packing or to adjust the height. The height adjustment is really handy if you use a trekking pole tent. Just make sure these poles are long enough to pitch the shelter you have in mind. The adjustable portion of the pole uses a lever lock instead of a twist lock to lock the desired length in place and produces a solid fit. The lever lock can also be manually tightened if it gets loose.

Folding trekking poles are a great feature for people who travel or use them occasionally and want the option to pack them when they’re not needed. For example, these poles collapse to 15 inches, making them easy to pack in airplane luggage or stuff into a backpack when you want them out of the way. I like that I can collapse them and stuff them into the side pocket of my pack when I don’t require them. It’s very convenient.

Out of the box, the Cressida FX Carbon only comes with small trekking baskets, which I had to replace with snow baskets so the tips don’t sink into the snow. This was a very easy process though because the trekking baskets and the snow baskets screw onto threads at the tips, making them easy to change. Brands use to include snow baskets with their poles free of charge, but you need to pay extra for these.

Recommendation

Leki’s Cressida FX Carbon Trekking Poles are hands-down the most finely crafted trekking poles I’ve ever used. The components fit and work perfectly together and its a real pleasure to use such a finally craft “tool” during my favorite activity, in the woods. As someone who came kind of late to the trekking pole party, I can say that I’ve finally met my match. Highly recommended.

About the author

Minerva Hinchey is a experienced hiker and backpacker who resides in Vermont. She's an active member of the Green Mountain Club and when she's not crushing trail miles, likes to roll up her sleaves to build and maintain hiking trails. She's hiked Vermont's Long Trail and enjoys learning all about the trees, flowers, and birds that make the Long Trail their home. Does my name sound familiar? I'm named after my great aunt who was also active in the Green Mountain Club.

Disclosure: LekiUSA donated poles for review.

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