Hiking Boots for Plantar Fasciitis

[Drew Wiley]

Maybe this is getting too academic, and on your side, you seem to be confusing sport climbing, sport running, with a wider gamut of practical need. Lots of climbers are doing things quite different then some plastic and concrete climbing wall. Sport shoes are worthless in the Andes, Himalayas, higher latitudes, even
higher altitudes here off-season. I remember when several climbers died of hypothermia even in midsummer storms right on El Cap, where they could have almost thrown stones down onto gawking tourists. That week I was at 12000 ft. My toothpaste froze in the middle of my pack under a blue sky. The next day the blizzard hit so hard that it closed Hwy 395 down where the summer temp is normally around 100F. I'd like to see anyway walk out of something like that in speed shoes. I've done that kind of thing repeatedly, even for fun. Other people died, underequipped. Obviously, if someone enjoys moving fast and far, like I
did in my youth (even barefoot! - since shoes fit so miserably), that's fine. Indians did it; but they had all kinds of caves and rock overhands and so forth in route. But once you factor in distance PLUS large format, plus camping stuff, that kinda alters your outlook. I know all about rock bums. Most of them can't take
a picture worth a damn. A few can. And these days, they're more likely to gravitate to action cams. I'd like to see how your current sport climbing "A" list would
do if you asked them to add on a 16lb Ries, a typical 8x10, and some filmholders to their conventional gear list. I had a bad enough time trying to convince my nephew to put an extra weeks worth of toilet paper in his haul bag up the Dawn Wall. They came back with miserable sunburns after tearing apart T-shirts, pants legs, etc. Kids. Sometimes Ole Uncle does know a thing or two.

[paulr]

Cut it with the straw man arguments. Everyone I mentioned is an alpinist. Except for one who's an ultra trail runner.

[Drew Wiley]

No straw man. Anyone with sport shoes would have their feet frozen in mere minutes in typical extreme conditions. One of my friends lost his toes on Aconcagua two years ago, and he's one of the top name in Himalayan extreme climbing. Another friend almost lost his life on the same route, and his "day job" is guiding on Denali. My nephew didn't even remove his boots for over two months on Baffin, and had to be treated for trenchfoot by an arctic specialist MD when he finally got back. Couldn't even sleep without wearing seriously heavy arctic boots. Too cold. Even up the back of Ama Dablam last season, I can guarantee you sport shoes weren't used. Not everyone walks across a bridge from the Ahwahnee Hotel to start a climb. My nephew made a whole string of first ascents in the Karakorum with Kurt Diemberger - yeah, ever hear of him? Still at it. A living legend. And I assure you, nobody wore sport shoes on an expedition like that, not even on the approach, which happened to be about two hundred miles of extreme terrain before even reaching the glaciers. Yeah, I know... now try a checklist of show-off climbers, and extreme skiers, and bat-suit jumpers, who never made it past their twenties. Their choice. Not mine.

[Richard Wasserman]

Uh guys, I got new boots and am happy. Maybe it's time to move on?

[Bruce Watson]

Merrell--the guy who founded the company--still makes custom boots for you, personally.

Randy Merrell is a truly nice guy, and he does excellent work. But he hasn't been associated with the Merrell boot company in well over a decade. He is (or was when he made my boots maybe 14 years ago) completely independent. Just him and his wife. And happy about it.

And Randy would be one of the first people to tell you that plantar fasciitis isn't caused by, or cured by, boots. Not even his.

[paulr]

Uh guys, I got new boots and am happy. Maybe it's time to move on?

Hooray!

[paulr]

My nephew made a whole string of first ascents in the Karakorum with Kurt Diemberger - yeah, ever hear of him? Still at it. A living legend. And I assure you, nobody wore sport shoes on an expedition like that...

of course they didn't. He's EIGHTY TWO years old, Drew. The boots I'm talking about didn't exist in his day.

I'm talking about what they're wearing on 1st ascents in the Karakorum in this century.

Happily, it's moot, since the OP found his boots.

[Drew Wiley]

He's still climbing, Paul.... that's the whole deal. It's still his day. People don't live that long wearing bedroom slippers just because they saw them on U-tube. He was the oldest person to climb K2, and in fact the only survivor of that trip. There's a reason these guys are still around, and a reason why all the twenty-something hotshots are not. But what you don't seem to get is that this is LF forum, not "Action Cam on the end of a Carabiner Forum". When I traveled ultralight, I was carrying a very early Honeywell Pentax - but I still wore real boots. Glaciers aren't real friendly places, and only a fool would wear something lightwt on them. And plenty of sport climbers are fools. That's why they win the Darwin award so often. The climbers that live to be my age have a different mentality. Obviously, not every one on this forum needs to worry about severe terrain or even understands the subject, or why choice of footwear can be a life
or death decision. I've walked out of storms chuckling, only to find out that someone else didn't.

[Fred L]

I always had Vasque on my feet years ago but they seemed to have strayed from their earlier Clarion days. I've been wearing Kayland boots for the last ten years or so and find them on par or better than the early Vasques.

[Racer X 69]

Uh guys, I got new boots and am happy. Maybe it's time to move on?

I concur.

Congratulations on your new footwear Richard! I hope that your feet will be happy through every step.