A quick 5 mile hike along the rocky Darlington trail after the washer and dryer were installed. When I got home I looked at the soles of my Vasque GTX Boots and there chunks broken off. Crap, I need to buy and break in new boots two weeks before my hike starts. My feet hurt just thinking about it. In the last 20 years I have gone through four pairs of the same heavy boot. The last two pairs took a long time to wear in. Perhaps they did not fit the same but I always blamed it on getting older, the older I get the more pain I feel.
I decided to do some research. After trolling around the internet a while I found a pretty good site on backpacking with a good article on hiking footwear (http://www.cleverhiker.com/blog/ditch-boots). The article cited "Weight on your feet will zap 4-6 times more energy than weight on your back. So, swapping that 3-pound pair of boots for a 1-pound pair of running shoes will be the energy saving equivalent of removing 8-12 pounds from your pack" They seemed to like "trail runners" which was more of a running shoe but my concerns were durability. I don't want to replace my shoes every 300 miles. Monday I go down to the closest REI to check out new shoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment