Hiking Boots for Plantar Fasciitis

[Drew Wiley]

Not much different than bad back issues. Surgery should only be a last resort; and if so, always get a second opinion. But what can mess up driving for me is a
bout of gout in the big toe. That can make using a truck clutch hell! Fortunately, a good long backpack, and prior strenuous training/workouts burns off most of the nasty stuff in my system. Otherwise, diet and vitamins seem to help a lot. I had such terrible foot pain in my earlier years that I just put up with it, since nobody had an answer back then. I still have bad pain standing on hard floors or walking paved roads, sidewalks, etc. Mountains are fine because the foot comes down at a different angle almost every time, due to the uneven terrain. But back when the evil General Hershey was shipping every young man to Vietnam, the Army doc took one look at my feet and gave me a 4F. So I guess that was one positive thing. Otherwise, pain reduction had to await modern carbon fiber orthotics and someone who understood how they are intended to be used. Of course, the weight of the LF pack gets factored into the equation along with body wt. - ironic, cause as I "gravitate" toward lighter packs, my belly mass seems to proportionately increase, keeping the orthotic formula relatively constant.

[paulr]

Vasque, Raichle, all kinds of things were actual serious European-made boots at one time. Now they're just labels on more disposable Chinese stuff. Wear 'em,
wear 'em out, and then throw em away, cause you can't resole em. Or in my case, a suitable fit doesn't even exist.

Vasque is and always was an American company. Raichle seems to have been bought by Mammut, also of Switzerland.

La Sportiva, Scarpa, and Asolo make their boots in Italy. Their current offerings are better technologically, and as good in basic quality, as any boots I've seen made in the last 50 years. If they don't fit your outlier feet ... that's another issue entirely.

My favorite lighter mountain shoes are approach shoes by 5.10, and trail running shoes by Montrail. Both from bad 'ol China. I can hike farther, harder, and more comfortably in these than any shoes or boots I've ever worn. If I get a few seasons out of them, I'm happy. They'll wear out because they're lightweight, not because they're crap.

[Drew Wiley]

All those boots are miserable quality compared to what they once were, and mostly Chinese these days. My first pair of Raichles were true leather Swiss double boots made with moose hide. Weighed a lot, but you could posthole in deep snow all day long without getting your feet wet or cold. I kicked my way up a lot of ice walls in those things and my good ole wooden ice axe (well, while it lasted). Nowadays people either have to go to plastic or pay a couple grand for custom to get anything like that. I put over 10,000 miles on that pair before someone stole them! Any pair of Vasques wore out in six months. I have a pair of Asolo heavy crosscountry ski boots that I gave up on years ago. So so. Never fit right anyway. Then I ordered up a pair of Meekan custom hiking boots. Took forever to break in but lasted 25 years and eight resolings! I'd call that a bargain over time. Now I wear Essato custom boots. They keep prices reasonable by cutting the components CNC. Good waterproof leather (which is impossible to find in store-bought boots). They build the boot with the orthotics on hand, and each shoe (L&R) separately, and can do minor readjustments afterwards. Never had a serious blister with them, not even new, and have already put on maybe a thousand miles. First pair around $800, an extra pair runs about half that. Quite reasonable. Should have had them make my street boots instead of going Red Wing. I
can't wear ordinary shoes or even casual lightwt boots at all due to my deformed feet. Need a LOT of serious ankle support.

[paulr]

All those boots are miserable quality compared to what they once were, and mostly Chinese these days.

[Jeremiad Generator™ > On!]

Oh Drew. I do believe you're familiar with the old kletterboots, as I am also. But I don't think you know anything about what's available today. I've got two pairs of La Sportiva mountaineering boots that are every bit as well made as anything out of Italy, France, or Switzerland in the 1970s. I see those old boots. I've had a couple of pairs of them.

There are two enormous advantages to the new boots: the technology is just superior, so you get better climbing performance and lower weight (and in the winter models, more warmth). They're more waterproof than the old boots ever were (which is to say, they're waterproof) and don't need customer intervention to maintain this quality.

The other advantage is that the new boots are optional, because the new lightweight shoes are so good. Unless you need a lot of foot or ankle support, you can use ballet-slipper weight shoes to hike higher and farther and more comfortably than anyone used to imagine.

My Sportiva boots are for when I need to wear crampons at some point in the day. That's it. If I don't need to clamp on the 'poons, I don't even consider them. I'll wear my 5.10 approach shoes if I'm carrying a pack or doing a lot of 3rd / 4th class scrambling, and my trail running shoes otherwise.

It's a much better world. Do harder hikes and alpine climbs now than I did when I was in my 20s. The shoes get some of the credit.

[edited to add: the sportivas are still made in Italy, if you actually care]

[Drew Wiley]

Oh Paul ... I wear a far better pair of boots routinely than anything you can buy store-bought. And I do know a thing or two about outdoor gear. For one
thing, I not only know the people who run some of these stores and companies, and even own them, but I've had more than my fair share of big-budget expedition gear piled around my house over the years, and that most of it is made to last just one or two trips. Most of this boot mfg per se is geared to one key variable: make it cheaper, not better. Maybe rock-climbing slippers are an exception, but I can't think of much else. You ought to talk to our local boot repairman, who takes it all in. Or never mind... he has contempt for all but one particular podiatrist, and doesn't consider any boot custom unless it's built with the orthotics permanently in place rather than accommodated (unfortunately, nobody offer true mountain boots that way). Even the choice of leather has gone to hell unless custom. Your comment makes about as much sense as saying these anodized aluminum enlargers out the gate last are superior to postwar machined stainless Durst units. I'd have ended up dead decades ago with broken ankles in the middle of nowhere if I'd have used those silly glorified tennis shoe thingeys.

[Drew Wiley]

... Yeah, I anticipate the rebuttal... I've got bad feet, most people don't. But just a few years ago I'm out awhile in Oct high country with a friend (who I insisted
wear real boots too). We're having fun, but pretty isolated behind a high pass, waiting out the blizzards. Meanwhile, helicopters are overhead for several days looking for stranded hikers. About eight parties had to be helicopter rescued that week because they were wearing that Gortex/running-shoe-REI-ish footwear instead of real boots. Sure, the Indians did it for millenia barefoot; but we don't have any statistics on how many of them froze in the mountains, and they probably were done crossing the passes by the end of summer anyway. And they had enough common sense not to buy things made in China. Probably didn't use Discover cards either.

[Sirius Glass]

Invest in a pair of custom made sole inserts made by a properly trained technician at a sports store.

[paulr]

... Yeah, I anticipate the rebuttal... I've got bad feet, most people don't.

Which is why you need to stop conflating your special needs with everyone else's. It's entirely understandable that someone with terribly abnormal feet would need custom-made boots. But I don't believe for a second that anyone else does. I've never seen evidence that plantar's faciitis is best cured with custom shoes. I've never even heard it suggested before now. I'd personally rather leave the corrections to insoles, since the chances are good it will take quite a few attempts to find a good solution.

While your personal connections to the Pantheon of the outdoor industry sounds very impressive, I'm afraid I don't believe a word of it. Your characterization of the industry doesn't fit my own very personal experiences of it.

My own investigation looks like this: what footwear do the elite mountain athletes wear? The guys setting records on 100-mile trail runs, or in the Arrowhead showshoe race, or on the great Alpine enchainments, or right now on the Dawn Wall of El Cap? What are people wearing to the tops of the 8000 meter peaks? Up the hardest ice climbs, or the coldest routes in the Alaska Range?

I can only think of one set of examples of people using custom footwear: over a decade ago, there were no commercially available shoes designed for difficult mixed climbing. People were making their own by bolting pieces of crampons to the bottom of cycling cleats, and other kinds of McGyverings. But the industry caught on in about two seasons so no one does this anymore. EVERYONE doing the hardcore shit is using off-the-shelf shoes these days. And the reason is that the shoes are really good.

[Drew Wiley]

Paul... you're preaching to the wrong guy. My nephew climbed El Cap over two hundred times when he lived with me.... and every one of them a difficult route.
He did the first direct ascent of Escudo in Patagonia, considered the most technical climb ever done in South America, twice and ht of El Cap but overhanging in
sub-zero weather. He did the first direct ascent of the NW Tower of Aasgard on Baffin Island, possibly the most difficult tech climb ever done in the arctic. Who do you think reset the bolts to that stupid Dawn Wall on the third ascent, after RR chopped them years before? I was right there helping him scope the route, after I chopped a crest off an ice column piled up below El Cap Falls, so I could set my Sinar on it for an edge-on shot. One of my hiking pals owned the first serious climbing shop in NYC. His brother runs one of these big mucky muck climbing companies; and his best friends owns probably the biggest name in climbing gear. We get to test any of this gear we want in advance. So I'm afraid you, Paul, my friend, are a bit of your league in some of these comments.

[Drew Wiley]

... To rub it in a bit more ... why the heck to you think you have to wait months on end to get a pair of custom boots, even though it's now semi-automated via
CNC? It's cause they're in DEMAND. Got a postcard from them last nite. Now they're making XC boots too. And not long ago they added old-shool heavy leather
mtn boots for the crampon crowd. Why? It's called DEMAND. Ever seen someone trying to actually hike in those plastic expedition boots? It ain't fun, and they only last one or two expeditions. Gosh do I know that. So why do they wear them? Cause that's what they got free from the expedition sponsor, who made or sold the damn things to begin with !!!! Ever wonder why some dogsledder will spend two or three thousand dollars for traditional handmade Eskimo-style moosehide boots? Cause they're still the best. I've been back wherever, when someone had a bad bout of plantar f., and I'd place my money on a good podiatrist and some serious footwear before I'd trust some snarky web opinions. And I really don't give a damn whether someone in NYC believes me or not ...
I've only got thousands of large format shots from hundreds of trips in the mtns, in all kinds of weather. That should give someone a clue.