View Full Version : Wolverine Boots and a Guy named Bear
the_iceman
12-19-2006, 08:24
Just heard an ad for Wolverine boots with a guy named Bear who says he did the AT twice in his Wolverine boots. Fact or Fiction?
Lone Wolf
12-19-2006, 08:27
Probably fact. In the 80s everyone had leather boots of some type. I've seen hikers in Red Wings.
Do a web search on "Peter Limmer boots." Limmer had a shop in Jackson, New Hampshire that made custom boots for many years. Several of the "pioneer" AT hikers from the old daze used Peter Limmer boots. They were massive.
Lone Wolf
12-19-2006, 09:04
Do a web search on "Peter Limmer boots." Limmer had a shop in Jackson, New Hampshire that made custom boots for many years. Several of the "pioneer" AT hikers from the old daze used Peter Limmer boots. They were massive.
Massive, heavy , expensive and overrated. I hiked with a guy in 92. He lived 10 minutes from the Limmer shop. He had a pair for his thru-hike. Somewhere in Tennessee the soles were peeling bad. He sent the boots to get repaired. It took 3 months to repair them. It cost $60 too on top of the $200 + he paid for them.
It wasn't an endorsement, Wolf. :) Just a bit o' history. Limmer boots come up again and again in the stories in that old Rodale Press anthology of the early thru hikers' diaries.
I loved those Fabiano Trionics I wore in '90... but since then I've never found a leather boot that could touch 'em. As the years go on I find I need and want less and less in a boot.... to the point where these things I wear now are really just glorified sneakers.
I wonder if this is the same Bear that started New years Day 2006 from Springer and was described by some on the trail as a grifter or mooch.
the_iceman
12-19-2006, 10:27
I was just wondering of Wolverine was committed to Truth in Advertising?
It was not so much about the boots but the advertisers claim.
The same Bear that got arrested near Greymoore for trying to rob a wal mart?
Toolshed
12-21-2006, 23:18
I used to do a lot of backpacking in the day in Wolverine boots. I believe they came in both stitch down welts and Norwegian welts. But the work boots with the yellow-white oil resistant soles were great for everything!!
BTW LW weren't they Red "Ball" boots?
Lone Wolf
12-21-2006, 23:21
I used to do a lot of backpacking in the day in Wolverine boots. I bleeive they cam in both stitch down welts and Norwegian welts. But the work boots with the yellow-white oil restant soles were great for everything!!
BTW LW weren't they Red "Ball" boots?
www.redwingshoes.com/
partly cloudy
12-24-2006, 21:16
Wonder if it was the same Bear I meet at Cowell shelter in northern Md. in April '06. He said his pack was 110 lbs.
Old Hillwalker
12-25-2006, 00:18
Do a web search on "Peter Limmer boots." Limmer had a shop in Jackson, New Hampshire that made custom boots for many years. Several of the "pioneer" AT hikers from the old daze used Peter Limmer boots. They were massive.
My feet were severely fXXXXd up from immersion foot during my 60s participation in the Viet Nam war games where we came in second place. Consequently I have been wearing the same pair of Limmer Standards since I picked them up in the spring of 1981. They have been resoled four times and have been all over the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Since I can't wear regular boots, I have put another pair on order for my thru in 2008. Peter Limmer Jr. warned me that people are going to laugh at me for wearing such a heavy boot, but for me it's either wear custom fitted boots, or not hike at all. In the winter I use an old pair of Koflach Ultra plastics with special front filler inserts, but can usually only put in about ten hours before my feet force me off the mountain. By the way, custom Limmers are now up around $600 a pair. Not a few mountaineers with amputated toes still cherish the hand fitting that the Limmer boys provide. OK, you may now cast your aspersions;)