BACKPACKING BOOTS
HOW TO CHOOSE BACKPACKING FOOTWEAR to Protect Your Feet
Backpacking = hiking while carrying a heavy pack, for multiple days in a row.
Much of the advice about minimalist footwear for backpacking can be rejected outright. Maximum flexibility and thin cushioning isn’t always a good thing. Yes, you can carry a heavy pack on rough terrain over long distances with minimalist (lightly cushioned, highly flexible) footwear. But you risk short-term acute injuries (e.g., hyperextension, stress fractures), and accelerated wear and tear on cartilage tissues.
Lots of midsole cushion seem to run counter to the “barefoot” movement, but backpacking is different. They don’t understand the complexity of foot biomechanics and the long-term effects of overuse that is endured by backpacking (and other athletic endeavors) on a regular basis for several decades. Remember that you are carrying a pack (which should be as light as possible), and traveling over rough terrain, for days at a time without the opportunity to rest your feet and allow them to heal and recover.
We can screw up our feet with bad shoe choices, under-recovery after high-exertion events, and not knowing when to throttle back our physical output.
Here are some guiding principles to consider if you want to keep hiking into your sunset years, so you can delay the inevitable onset common overuse conditions that sneak up on you in middle age – like hallux rigidus (arthritis in the big toe joint).
1. Give your toes plenty of room.
Altra and others build shoes with nice, big toe boxes. Allowing your feet to splay naturally inside a shoe distributes stress across more joints and soft tissues in your foot and you don’t concentrate it too much in one spot, like the MTP joint.
2. Stiffer soles. A sole that is a little bit on the stiffer side will help prevent the overuse injuries that plague hikers when they accumulate decades of trail miles. Stiffness also provides a hedge against injuries related to hyperextension of the MTP joint and metatarsal stress fractures.
3. Lots of cushion. The heavier your pack, the rougher the terrain, the faster you hike, and the longer the trip, the more cushion you’ll need.
4. Wearing only one type of shoe is not healthy. Hike in more than one different type of shoe, often. Mixing up your hiking footwear (hiking in several different types of shoes) helps develop comprehensive strength and adaptation to walking because different shoes create stress across different sets of soft tissue groups and joints.
Here are some great trekking shoes – switch them up often when you train, and even on a backpacking trip.
Altra Lone Peak 4 – a zero-drop, wide toe box, well-cushioned shoe. Best shoe for very long daily distances on trail. Available as a low and mid height, plus or minus water proofing (REM).
La Sportiva Akyra – a technical shoe with a very grippy sole. Good for off-trail travel that doesn’t require a lot of rock scrambling.
Scarpa Zen Pro – a stiff approach shoe and not awesome for high mileages, Terrific when adding Class 2-4 terrain to routes, or when hiking long stretches of snow in crampons or spikes. The best shoe for scrambling and snow hiking.
Hoka Stinson ATR 5 – a recovery shoe, for when I need to nurse bruising injuries to the bottom of my foot.
QUESTIONS
Should you use orthotics? I prefer shoes and orthotics that put the foot into a neutral position. If you want extra cushion in your shoes, check out the heat-moldable cork Performance Thick footbeds from Sole. Just be sure to size up your shoes to accommodate their volume.
What size shoes for backpacking? Most hikers don’t size up enough, and their toes and forefoot get cramped. that causes all sorts of problems. Eg – a foot that measures at just a shade over a men’s US size 8 might wear 9’s or 9.5’s in Altra, 10’s in La Sportiva, 9.5’s in Scarpas (with the Sol footbed), and 9.5’s in Hokas.
Since sizing at least 1.5 sizes up in most models (1.0 size in some Altras), my foot comfort increased dramatically. My arch has actually developed over the past 20 years from being nearly flat-footed, and I’ve never suffered from plantar fascia pain.
“What shoes should I buy?”– The leaner I am, and the more attention I give to physical training, the less my shoes matter.