Rocky Mountain Underground Summit Pole
RMU came out with the Summit Pole, a rebranded ski pole, which I believe is also part of 4FRNT's line up, under their own name. The Summit Pole is rad! I have been using the traditional Black Diamond telescoping pole for a few years and the Summit Pole is almost half the weight with just as much telescoping range.
There are two down sides: one is that the basket to pole connection is not the strongest; I had to replace two baskets over the course of four months. The other is the handle; while the grip is phenomenal, the top of the grip doesn't have as protrusive of a nose as the BD pole does. If you're not out in the backcountry then this isn't an issue, but the more protrusive BD nose does allow for easier/ faster binding transitions.
Why buy this pole over the BD? Well the BD pole is much heavier, the bottom sections are highly subject to corrosion on the non-protected aluminum and I have snapped more bottom sections with a normal pole plant than I could have ever imagined--I rather loose a basket then half of my pole…