Postcards from the Trail |
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Location: Countdown to sore feet.
4/15/07
Today’s Miles: 0
A trail friend from last season recently wished me good wishes for this years hike. The title of the email was Countdown To Sore Feet. (How right you are Marley, how right you are.) Anyway, that title got me thinking that indeed is was, as well as I just loved that title. “That deserves an illustration Postcard,” I said to myself. (This happens a lot.)
Many of you think the requirement for hiking over 2000 miles comes down to shoes, which I wholeheartedly say “Yea bubba.” The modern hiking trend to go lighter with the gear has allowed us to switch to trail runners rather than those heavier leather boots thru-hikers of just ten years ago had to tolerate. Trail runners keep our feet nimble and reduce the leg fatigue that comes with 20-mile days. Almost any kind of shoe can be worn the entire length of a thru-hike if one doesn’t mind wearing tatters, but the decision to switch out to a new pair always comes down to tread stickiness for me. Falling on my face (Or wrist) is worth the price of new shoes in my experienced opinion. But even that’s not a guarantee for injury free travel; it’s just playing the odds.
On my hikes I’ve gone through three pair and four pair in my two end-to-end journeys. Marley, mentioned above, went through fourteen last season. The first pair went several hundred miles until he came to the trails first river ford. Smartly, to keep his socks dry (A man after my own heart) removed his socks and shoes and with laces tied together draped them over his neck before wading in wearing Crocs. But alas, river bottoms are filled with nooks and crannies and wildlife. It is there, in the middle of stream that a rather large trout grabbed his colorful Croc. Marley wobbled but remained vertical; unfortunately the trapeze action sent the sock stuffed shoes to the raging river. Unknown that particular morning was that Venus, Mercury, Mars, Earth and our Moon just so happen to have their gravity’s aligned and amazingly, Marley’s shoes bounced rather than sink. The now floating trail shoes turned kayaks found the current and bid Marley good luck on his journey, but they had decided to go with the flow – next stop, The Atlantic Ocean. The remaining sixty miles to town were in Crocs! (The other 13 pair of shoes was split between Keens, house slippers, rubber boots, Birkenstocks, rollerblades, Prada pumps and wingtips.)
To suffer shoe problems on a long journey is of no surprise to any hiker, only I feel much of this is wrong minded –The shoes don’t hurt, they feel no discomfort. It is our feet that are the annoyance. As a result, I have started to carry spares.
Whether it’s to move ache free in the second half of the day or to switch out after mile 1000 to a whole other pair, spare feet solve much of what pains us. Just treat it as another maildrop or gear change. You change your shoes, you change your socks, why aren’t you changing your feet? Try this little nugget of wisdom on your next hike and smile your way to camp.
(Spare feet are available online at Feet R Us and Sole Friend. Unmatched sets –two lefts or two rights– are discounted. We cannot be held responsible for damage caused by stubbed toe or hikers foot. Walk happy;-)