[pct-l] Boots: deserts and streams

[ned at pacificcrestcustombuilders.com]

In the desert heat of New Mexico and SoCal, my boots were never a source of 
trouble, blisters, or pain of any kind. The only pain was in road-walking 
and most have trouble there.

In crossing creeks, I always just walk through with the boots on and change 
socks on the other side. In the summer, I just keep on going, non-stop, and 
just walk 'em dry. Of course, I keep the uppers oiled and supple. Simple, 
secure, painless way to cross.

Mtnned
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Ostheimer" <rick.ostheimer at sbcglobal.net>
To: <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 9:37 AM
Subject: [pct-l] [Fwd: Re: Boot Wear Patterns]


> Eric Lee wrote:
> Handlebar wrote:
>  I wore boots on my 08 PCT thru and on my 06 AT thru.
>
> How'd your feet do with the boots in the desert heat?  For stream
> crossings,
> did you remove them or just wade straight through and wear them wet?
>
> Eric
>
> Desert heat:  I actually think they might have been better in the desert
> heat as they have thicker soles.  I had 3 changes of socks and a couple
> of safety pins.  Early in the hike I changed out my socks after about
> every 3 hours of hike time, but toward the end I just swapped out the
> socks at the end of the day.  The wet one rode pinned to my backpack to
> dry.  One thing I noticed with my 280 mile trail runner (Montrail
> Hardrocks) experiment was that my feet got very dirty, while, in the
> boots they stayed quite clean.  I did wear gaiters, OR Mountain lows,
> but they wore very poorly.  After 2 pairs, I switched to a pair of Dirty
> Girls around Sierra City.  They were much more breathable and held up to
> the end.
>
> Stream Crossings.  With the OR low gaiters, I often did rock hops where
> the rocks were submerged in the water.  If the ford was deeper, I
> switched to crocs and crossed in those.  I had a couple pieces of bear
> hanging cord that I used to secure the crocs to my feet.  I tried to
> avoid situations where the boots were submerged and filled with water as
> they do take a very long time to dry as the lining absorbs a lot of
> water.  A trick to drying them if they do get wet is to stuff socks into
> the boots, let them set a while, pull out and wring out the socks, and
> repeat until the socks don't absorb any more water.
>
> I'd used the make/model of boots on previous hikes and therefore knew
> what size to get.  Even though I did a lot of training hikes,  I did get
> a few blisters at the start of the hike.  Once those cleared up, no more
> blisters.  Because I knew the size and that, with LaSportiva Makalus,
> one either loves them or hates them, I was able to get a barely worn
> pair (used only for snowshoeing) on EBay for $75.  Compare that to
> $320-400 for 4 to 5 pair of trail runners.  Plus, I got that pair
> resoled for another $75 and expect to get another 2000 miles.
>
> Handlebar
>
> Eric Lee wrote:
> Handlebar wrote:
>  I wore boots on my 08 PCT thru and on my 06 AT thru.
>
> How'd your feet do with the boots in the desert heat?  For stream
> crossings,
> did you remove them or just wade straight through and wear them wet?
>
> Eric
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