The shoe debacle

There is one piece of gear that is important on a hike, SHOES! The rest?

Who cares, its still to heavy.

I was a seasoned veteran heading out on my second thru hike, I knew what I wanted. The chosen shoe this time was well-tested. Two years of disc golf walking. Perfect fit. I brought three pairs. I’m a genius.

Then my first pair of shoes disintegrated after 4 Days. FOUR! Just fell apart. Like, literally gave up on existing. So I had to buy a new pair in Julian. This time a pair of brand new Altra Lone Peak. Everybody uses them, so they had to be great?

This is what the trail does to shoes

Well. Of course not. My feet were aching basically every day. But I pushed through for over 350 miles, until I reached Acton where my next pair was waiting. The same trusty model I’d sworn by from home. Genius, right? Except my feet had grown during the hike. Too small. Felt like a vice on my toes.

So I started to search for new shoes, and found a pair of Merrels that looked great! Ordered them to Hikertown. Walked with foot pain until they came. There I had to wait for an extra day for my new, new pair of shoes. When they arrived they looked good! Looked really good. One small problem though. They were women sizes, way to small for me. Fuck, there is no end to this. Do i really have to order new ones? Wait even longer? What to do?

A shoebox with merrels size eu 41 — Theese where way to small…

Well anyways I walked out with shoes 3 sizes to small. Bad idea it turns out. Lost alot of toenails, and blood. My brand new White shoes were more red than White, and some toes looked more like red grapes than anything that should sit at the end of a foot. Awesome. Actually first time I ever cried while walking, so that was fun.

At Tehachapi I abandoned all hope of buying a new, new, new pair of shoes. I found a rugged pair of Altra olympus my size in a hiker box and took them. They actually worked fine for a while, until they fell apart as well. Lost the bottom part of the sole going down to Kearsarge Pass.

Last pair I wore was Another pair of hiker box shoes. A bit too big, but okay. No clue what brand, but they took me all the way to Lake Tahoe. They also fell apart, but there was no way I was getting new shoes. Sports tape and willpower kept them going until I flew home.