Looks like a typical trail tread in the White Mountains to me!Originally Posted by Leo L.
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
I'm right in the middle of trying to find comfortable trail runners, which has proven to be quite a task. For my thru hike I wore Merrill boots which after trying on every different boot that REI carries were the only ones that felt comfortable on my feet. I burned through 3 pairs over the entirety of the trail but they really only held together for about 400 miles before the toe box would start coming apart and they just generally started breaking down. In hindsight I really felt the boots were big and clunky and heavy, and were a hindrance to my efforts and if I could have it back I would have gone with trail runners. Now that being said I have now tried out 3 different pairs of trail runners and tried on another 8 pairs and for the life of me I can't find anything that feels right. Ideally I would want to wear Solomons but they feel terrible on my feet, same with Asics and Vasque and Brooks...I'm running out of options here but haven't given up hope just yet.
Anyone else have finicky feet like I do?
When I do find a shoe that fits I think I will buy 10 pairs and call it good for a while.
Honestly, I have to fight with every kind of shoe/boot for some time, until they are really broken in.
The Salomons seem to be more kind to the feet from the beginning, but for several full-day hikes in a row they are quite tough, in my case especially to the outside of the pinky toe. It takes several weeks and lots of tape until I can wear them full-day without problems. I take this due to the lot of plastic they are made of.
The lightweight leather boots took zero time to break in.
The midweight leather boots were very tough for the first few days, but they seem to be broken in faster than the Salomons and after a few days were ready for comfortable full-day use. It helped a lot to get them really wet and wearing them until they dried up.
I've seen both sides. When I first started hiking, leather boots were the norm. Heavy and killed my feet. Fabiano Trionics were my all time favorite leather boots but by the time I needed to replace them, you couldn't buy them any more. Did half the AT and all of the White Mtns. with boots like that.
Decades later I was hiking in running shoes (not even "trail runners") without problems. Then just last year I found myself hiking in mile after mile of wet boggy trail. So I'm back to mid-height fabric boots for most multi-day hikes. (Vasque Breeze Gtx).
My hikes often involve rock scrambles. It does seem that light modern boots don't seem to hold on slippery wet rock the way the old Vibram lug soles did.
My ridiculously screwed up feet do best in Altra trail runners. Gotta get one of the trail runner models (Lone Peak 2.5 or the like) for the rock guards. I don't particularly care for the zero drop heels, it's taken about a year to build up my alkalies to the point that it doesn't bother me a little at times when climbing extended steep trails. But, the Altras, in combination with the modifications I do to my left foot's foot-bed, are the only shoes I can walk in all day and and still keep moving at the end in only moderate instead of extreme pain.
The Altras have essentially no foot support structure in them, so your feet need to be pretty strong to work well with them. But, oh my, what saviors they have been for my feet.
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
I have not read the study, or even heard of it until now. But it makes sense. Physics tells us that when you lift something up, the amount of energy that it takes depends on the the mass of the object and the distance it is moved upward.
Think about watching a hiker from the side. His or her body moves up and down slightly with each step. So too does the backpack that is attached to their body. Let's say the pack bobs up and down about an inch with each step. Now look at the feet. They are going much further up and down with each step. Maybe five inches. That is where your factor of five comes from.
A one pound weight on the feet, rising five inches with each step requires the same amount of energy as a five pound weight in the pack rising one inch with each step. Ok, this is a simplification to be sure, but it gives you a basis for the saying "a pound on the feet equals five in the pack".
I've got Saucony Perigrine 6's and love them. Finally picked up some gaiters b/c I was tired of stopping every hour to clean the debris out of my shoes.
Well, thats one side of the story, the one you can proof by formulas and calculations (kind of).
The other side is, that the body is designed in a way that what you repeat over and over again makes you stronger. You still need the pure physical energy to perform the task (read, you need to eat the according amount), but you are able to perform the task. Its not killing you.
In addition, the body learns quite quick to perform repetitive tasks in a way that the least amount of energy possible is needed.
Plus, there is more to it than just pure physics.
If I want to proof a theory, I usually exqaggerate the presumtions to the extreme. In this case, it would be walking barefoot, means zero weight on your feet. Will this be so much easier, due to lack of dead weight?
No, its also strenous, because there are much more details to the whole case than just pure weight.
We may agree that "some low weight" for the shoes would make the best of it.
And as usual, "low weight" means a tradeoff in other factors, like stability, longevity, price, etc.
How much this "low weight" is, depends on many factors.
And how important the weight, in relation to any tradeoffs, is for you, everybody needs to decide on its own.
in my view, it's not rocket surgery that a lighter shoe will be easier to walk with. sometimes though, I prefer a little more of a toe counter and/or shank than the lightest lightweight trail runners provide.
I have Oboz Sawtooth (low)and they are a similar fit to Salomon with a bit better heel lock and wider toe bed. you might give these a try...
If you're trying to smear, edge or jam your way up high-inclination rock, I'd say that the time is long past to bring out the approach shoes. I wouldn't wear any sort of heavy boot for that sort of stuff - I want the sticky rubber.
Personally, I range through all sorts of footwear weights: Approach shoes for high-angle rock, such as slide hiking in the 'Daks. New Balance sneakers (with Superfeet insoles) for general hiking. Steel-toed boots for trail maintenance. Full leather boots when the traction gear comes out - because there is NO trail-runner that's safe with snowshoe and crampon bindings. Pac boots in deep cold. I don't own mountaineering boots because I haven't been able to justify the price to myself for the once or twice a year that I'd use them. Gaiters with any of the above (except the approach shoes, of course!) when needed for brush or gravel or mud or snow.
My personal experience is that for me, 'ankle support' is a dangerous myth. If I'm hiking on rough ground regularly, my ankles are strong enough to take a lot of roll, and if I'm using traction gear, they're going to be rolled all day long to keep crampons engaged. If I use boots that immobilize my ankles, all the torque winds up on my knees instead, and knees aren't built to take that. Your ankle support comes from your heel cups, which is why I find factory insoles on most low-cut shoes useless, throw them away and put in Superfeet. So for most general hiking, you'll find me in sneakers.
For conditions like the picture, I ladder-lock my boot laces across the instep and then lace the tops very loosely so that my ankles are still fairly free to move. My ankles are rolling all day long to keep my snowshoe crampons engaged on the sidehills. Ankles take that just fine if you work up to it. (No I haven't sprouted horns. That's the spike of an ice axe sticking up behind my head. We switched out to ice axes and crampons for part of the trip.)
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
Saucony makes a decent pair available in wide sizes if you need them.
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” –Socrates
OP says the Merrell boots fit fine, so the logical place to start might be Merrell trail runners. My main shoe is Brooks Cascadia 9, but I tried some Merrell All Out Peaks and they were extremely comfortable, although not nearly as long wearing as the Cascadias. Avoid the Cascadia 10s like the plague... they have a unanimously, and well-earned, bad reputation, although I don't know about the 11s. I stocked up on 9s when I was able to snag a pair here and there... REI outlet and bpl gearswap.
[QUOTE=Another Kevin;2100391. . . Full leather boots when the traction gear comes out - because there is NO trail-runner that's safe with snowshoe and crampon bindings. . . [/QUOTE]
I've done lots of snowshoeing with trail runners. In fact, that's just about all I use when snowshoeing. It's awesome not having the extra weight of a heavy shoe on top of the weight of the snowshoes. You really should experiment with it if you haven't.
As for crampons, yeah, trail runners don't cut it with heavier crampons, BUT, trail runner rock with microspikes. And unless you're doing pretty extreme, higher-angle ice than most trails, even many of the stupid trails in the Whites, you can manage without crampons and excel without them on the 95% of the trail that isn't steepish.
For trail work, yeah, solid, leather boots are the only way to go!
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
what is this snow and ice stuff you guys are always yammering on about?..
I have tried lots of trail runners and I am happy with Adidas outdoors swift r.
Hiking the AT is “pointless.” What life is not “pointless”? Is it not pointless to work paycheck to paycheck just to conform?.....I want to make my life less ordinary. AWOL
I have 3 different boots depending on what I am doing and loads I am carrying.
A. Asolo 520 for HEAVY loads and maximum stability (these were my "go to" boots 6 years ago but now they barely ever go out)asolo.jpg
B. LaSportivaOMEGA GTX nice stability and much lighter than 520, these if it is cold with lots of rain or snow.sprtiva.jpg
C. LaSportiva SYNTHESIS MID GTX, closest to trail runners I have; I wear these all the time, probably too much... I love em! These are pretty breezy and would be nervous using them in snow.gtx.jpg
Gotta say the lighter shoes are definitely my choice now when appropriate.
The joy of winter! You don't have such winter joy?what is this snow and ice stuff you guys are always yammering on about?..
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
sure. but that's what airplanes are for. you don't actually LIVE in this stuff, do you?..
I think I tend to make the assumption of tougher trails than a lot of people here are accustomed to. The spot I'm on in the picture already has pretty gnarly ice hiding under that five-foot snowpack, and it's one of the few spots on that trail that actually make switchbacks. But none of us had cameras out for the spots where the trail charges straight up the fall line, at the sort of angle you see in the picture. Think Beaver Brook in winter - just on the edge of being a technical ice climb. There were spots on the way down where I was going piolet rampe and cross stepping. (I don't like piolet rampe very much. I hate any axe position that doesn't let me come to piolet arrêt in a single motion. But I liked it better than the idea of downclimbing on front points.)
The stupid trails in the Catskills are at least as challenging as the stupid trails in the Whites - and that's where I do most of my hiking, hence the occasional need for full crampons. I wear microspikes with trail runners all the time - I walk around town in all seasons, and part of my daily commute goes over a rail-trail that gets pretty icy, so I live in microspikes in winter.
I snowshoe around the local nature preserve in trail runners all the time. I do not trust trail runners to stay in the bindings securely in the mountains. As soon as I flip up the heel lifts on my snowshoes, the soles of trail runners collapse - which both kills my feet and makes my heels pop out of the straps. I see you're a Massachusetts hiker, so for comparison: I was fine on Race and Everett in trail runners on my snowshoes. I would NOT have been fine in trail runners on Blackhead or Sugarloaf over on the other side of the Hudson.
Also, I run to cold feet. Sorel pac boots rock.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
There's more to optimally energizing and propelling a car down the road than choosing the lightest wt tires. So it is with humans and shoes.
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