I bought the compact version of these carbon fiber poles for two reasons: at 11.2oz. for the pair they’re extremely light, and they don’t conduct cold. I was very pleased at their light swing weight using them during the summer, then I made the mistake of taking them up Denali.
The locking mechanism on one of them failed at 11,000 feet, and the other failed at 14,000 feet, leaving me to beg my climbing partner to rent one of his pair to me. It cost me all the chocolate chips out of my gorp, so you can imagine my chagrin.
It wasn’t that cold yet, perhaps single digits, yet I suspect that caused the glue holding the locking plugs to fail. I asked REI about this and Mike Foley from public affairs wrote back to inform me that while "returns for this model were not above average, we did improve the locking mechanism." I should have a chance to evaluate them this summer.