Ice poles are essential tools for measuring ice strength and safety. They help you keep your momentum crossing soft surfaces, snow-covered ice, or into a headwind. Use them to keep your balance while side-stepping across an open crack or a pressure ridge. And they work as crutches if you break a skate or lose a skate under the ice. Lastly, in a rescue operation you can use them to determine how closely you can approach a victim who has fallen through the ice.
Before you cross a boundary where the ice changes color or texture, stop and test the ice with your ice pole. Otherwise, you may enter too thin ice. A functioning ice pole will pierce several centimeters of ice in a single blow; this way you can quickly determine if the ice will hold or fail.
Skyllermarks ice poles have strong, lightweight aluminum shafts, with tips of hardened steel that hold their sharpness over time. Both ice poles in the pair are identical, and can also be comfortably used for pushing or for stability on uneven ice. The specially-designed hand grips allow the two poles to be attached together. Only sold in pairs.
Color choices are orange and black. The black model is the tried-and-true design that has been in production for decades. The new orange model comes with a redesigned tip protector that will not accidentally fall off.
Three lengths of poles are available: 125, 135 and 145 cm. For sizing suggestions go to NordicSkaters.org. If you want your poles to be even shorter, it is possible to remove the grips and cut the shafts yourself, then re-attach the grips. If you need longer poles, Zandstra Ice Poles are available as an alternate choice.
Pole tips are narrow to save weight, and to avoid getting stuck in the ice the way the wider, heavier tips do. When a wide tip gets stuck in the ice, the pole bends, and it cannot be straightened. That is the most important reason for narrow tips: Skyllermarks poles typically last for decades because they almost never bend or break.
