Trekking Pole Monopod Mount

Greetings Improvisers!

This summer I am planning a hiking trip up the Appalachian trail and was looking for a creative way to mount my Gopro Hero 3+ to catch all those amazing moments! Most importantly, I didn't want to fork over anymore money for expensive mounts and wanted it to work with my other cameras as well. Now on my hike, I can stick my pole in the ground and enjoy all the selfies along the trail!

Materials Needed:

Trekking Pole (Mine is a cheap one from wal-mart that I have hiked with for years)

Mini tripod for digital camera

Pliers

Knife

Optional tools:

Soldering Iron

Cutters

Total Project Time: About 20 Minutes

Materials Needed:

Trekking Pole (Mine is a cheap one from wal-mart that I have hiked with for years)

Mini tripod for digital camera

Pliers

Knife

Optional tools:

Soldering Iron

Cutters

The most essential item, aside from the trekking pole, is the mini tripod. I figure if you're like me you have at least one of these mostly useless tripods lying around that came with an old camera. I am re-purposing this tripod's screw fitting at the top for our new monopod. If you don't have one of these, I know you can buy tripod fittings on ebay or amazon for a few bucks.

Hopefully you weren't relying on this compass for guidance. Mine had long since cracked and probably wasn't reliable in the first place. I simply stuck a knife in the side and popped it off.

Next your going to need a big hole for the fitting to fit through. My handle grip on the pole was a rubbery plastic so rather than drilling through the material, I heated up the soldering iron and melted a hole big enough. You must be careful because as with any melting plastic the fumes are toxic so try to do this outside or in a well ventilated area.

This was fairly simple and self explanatory. Just deassemble the tripod until all you have is the little dial with the fitting on it.

My trekking pole fortunately had a empty space underneath for the strap. I then cut down the dial so that it could slide right in and be pushed up through the hole. If your trekking pole doesn't have this space, I suppose you could glue it down to the top of the pole.

My fitting wasn't quite tall enough to fit through the gap so I took a knife and skinned it down like a potato. Now my cameras can easily be thread onto the pole.

Now to mount a GoPro, you will have to have the tripod mount but this also works with any standard camera. I was very pleased with how stable and secure it was. Now group photos will be a click away!