[pct-l] Simple idea to prevent blister

[Mike Welch]

Good advice you guys.  I would also add this.  If you have the luxury, get in the habit of taking your shoes and socks off at your lunch break each day.  Dry your socks in the sun (if there is sun) and air your feet as you relax and have lunch.  Before I put my hiking boots back on I also check my feet for hot spots and if any are developing I use second skin or mole skin in that area.  I've not had a blister in the last six years of section hiking.  Also,  if you haven't read the book "Wild" read it as it's very instructive on how not to treat your feet and the importance of appropriate, careful planning.  mountain mike


________________________________
 From: Jeffrey Olson <jolson at olc.edu>
To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Simple idea to prevent blister
 
It's not just friction.  It's moisture and friction. Dan's second 
paragraph at the end of this says this.

The tighter your socks, the fewer hot spots can develop.  The friction 
that happens naturally between foot and shoe is mediated by the tight 
sock.  In the worst cases, the sock gets hot and a loose shoe disperses 
heat.  Tight shoes  and loose or thick socks concentrate heat and 
moisture and blisters happen.  Wear looSe shoes, tight socks, and walk 
with abandon.  Your shoes should slop around your foot as you walk.  
Your stride should feel the ground and the slop allows this.  This will 
happen only if you wear tight socks.

You can feel this when every step uses the full foot through the 
stride.  The advice in the above paragraph is pretty surface.  It's only 
when you're putting 40,000 steps a day on your feet that the beauty of 
tight, clean socks and a regular stride will be revealed.   If you're 
protecting a body part - a calf muscle, or heel, or ligament in the 
ankle, a hip or butt muscle - that irregularity will occur and your best 
laid foot/shoe/sock plans can be dissipated -  blown out enough to 
create throbbing, constant pain, to ruin the hike.

However, if you begin with a good foot, sock and shoe strategy, the 
irregularities in body-while-walking that reveal themselves will appear 
earlier and be more easily dealt with.

What's the hikers canary-in-the-mine?  It's the foot and its ailments.  
The first six weeks of hiking involves finding a bodily rhythm based in 
supporting the foot and its motions.  It's the foot and how it's 
planted, the rolling over into the next step that makes a million steps 
to Canada possible.

The ideal foot motion is the foundation of a dance.  There is no 
trudging, no ruing being on the trail, no wondering why I'm doing this.  
There is no feeling the pack is too heavy or the trail too steep.

What exists is a planting of the foot and a rolling over into the next 
step, where the rolling is a lightness-in-being that remains whether 
going up or down or along the valley floor.  The difference between 
trudging through and dancing-while-walking is attitudinal.

To be sure the lows will be there.  Hunger, thirst, a slight strain, a 
particularly steep uphill while enervated - all will happen.  But those 
are the lows.  The highs are what we wait for.  We don't make them 
happen.  We find our hiking rhythm and live through feeling depressed 
and tired and angry and small.

We have a center that remains the same whether emotions are high or 
low.  This is the key - this is the key to walking.  The center carries 
us through feeling down and feeling high.  Day after day we feel our 
emotions run rampant and we continue to put one foot in front of the 
other, rolling over our center in each step, affirming the foundation 
that is our hiking being...  It's all in the moment, and no stretch of 
the imagination will help us put one foot in front of the other.  It's 
all about rhythm and constance and being-centered and knowing I will 
feel low and want to leave the trail.

The lows, and highs will pass.  What remains is one foot in front of the 
other as an expression of my being harmony with the cosmos as I feel 
them...  That's what I walk for.  That's the foundation of my meaning 
and purpose in living, where I find them.  All else is structured by 
this day-after-day experience.  I am changed by hiking.  I am more 
comfortable being-in-the-moment than I was before.

I take this hard won feeling into my social and work life and no longer 
struggle to create meaning and purpose in a job or relationship.  I've 
already found what I need to live a life that enraptures me.  I wake up 
into this bodily understanding and open to a new power to create my life.

This is what long distance hiking offers - the realization I can create 
my life, and the foundational power to do so - foundational insofar I am 
a human being first, and all else is peripheral, insignificant play.  
When I look into your eyes we see each other or we don't.  I can create 
in ways that others don't understand because I am putting one foot in 
front of the other as I live.  The months on the trail have transformed 
and even if it is true that only I see and feel the change, and no one 
else does, I stay centered and create within the ongoing act of putting 
one foot in front of the other, all there is.

Jeffrey Olson, "Jeff, just Jeff"
Rapid City, SD

On 2/20/2013 6:25 PM, Dan Jacobs wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:54 PM, YoshihiroMurakami
> <completewalker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The cause of blister is shear force to exfoliate the dermis and the
>> epidermis  by the friction. In other words,  it is necessary to reduce
>> the friction between skin and socks to prevent blisters. There are
>> several strategies.
>>
>> The smart wool socks reduce the humidity of the surface of skin.
>> The socks should be changed regularly.
>

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