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Boots and Feet

Submitted by gjh on Thu, 21/05/2009 - 18:06

Ask an Army instructor. They will tell you that your feet and your gun are the most important things you have. (The gun part isn't very useful for us.) But if everything else goes wrong, a working pair of feet will get you back to civilization eventually.

You need to have:

  • Comfortable feet in comfortable boots, that don't rub
  • Dry feet. It's damp and rubbing that makes blisters, and they need to be avoided!
  • Plasters! Or zinc-oxide tape. When you DO get blisters, you're going to need to tape them down to stop the rubbing, moving and tearing open.

Boots: Modern Gore-Tex, fabric or leather are all okay around here. Most keen walkers these days like to have at least Gore-Tax panels in them. You do want them water resistant with some ability to breathe. Make sure they come up high enough to support your ankle. They need to fit well. It's okay to buy them big, though, because you also want...

Two pairs of socks: You probably want a thick outer sock and a thin inner one. You can spend money on both to get ones designed for hiking that keep you warm and dry. In fact, if you buy nothing else, good hiking socks are probably the thing to buy.