You can’t blame it on old age or lack of experience or not doing my research. But it took me more than 45-years to make the leap from hiking with boots to tennis shoes. Maybe I’m just a slow learner.
In 1978, I bought a new pair of heavy, leather hiking boots. (Salomon). That’s what you did in the 70’s. The first trip I wore them was in the Trinity Alps with my buddy George. He wore tennis shoes. Within hours those boots gave me silver-dollar sized blisters on both heels. Might be showing my age with the reference to silver dollars. But trust me, it was five-days of hiking torture.
Two years later, I carried those heavy treds through the south Pacific and southeast Asia before arriving in Nepal. I had worn them in by then and didn’t get blisters. But the trail around Annapurna was wet and snowy. Every night I put my boots by the fire to dry at the Nepali homes we stayed in. Didn’t happen. Every morning I put on soggy boots. One night a Canadian woman was at the same tea house as our group. She had worn Keds crossing the nearly 18,000-foot Thorong La Pass, and they were soaked from hiking over snow and ice. However, the next morning her tennies were warm and dry while I laced up my cold, wet Salomon’s. I may have cried.
Over the next decades, I continued to hike in boots which were now lighter and easier on the feet. When it came to the footwear to choose for the PCT, I decided to stick with boots for the first 700-miles in the California desert instead of the trail runners most PCT hikers wear. Bad decision. My feet and legs hated me for the blisters and shin splints that resulted.
On my next 500-mile leg, I switched to trail runners which gave my feet room to spread out, and finally I was rewarded with happy feet at the end of a hiking day. Why did it take me 45-years to make the change? Stubbornness makes me a slow learner.
