How to keep your feet dry?
We all know goretex is a meme and in my experience even the best hiking boots eventually get wet when walking through wet grass and then they never become dry again.
So right now I'm just walking in airy trail runners, they get wet as well but at least they dry quickly. Just have to rely on warm socks and good trousers then.
Wellies are not suited for hiking, so what can you do?
Leather boots with Storm Welts, with no padding, and NO GORE TEX or PLASTIC of ANY KIND. The leather boot should be treated with high quality conditioners, paste-like like Obenaufs LP. Beeswax type. Treat continuously after every use, after cleaning. Wear thick wool socks, and have a leather insole to take it out if submerged in water.
the yuropoor fears the trail runner
This
And this, although the complete lack of breathability will get you with any sort of exertion.
Dumb Black person I bet you take your goytex shoes off to cross streams and shit.
no bc i have tm; goretex.
inironicly.
>although the complete lack of breathability will get you with any sort of exertion.
True for warm weather. In the winter I have an oversized pair that I put wool lining in and wear double layer wool socks, so sweat and moisture ain't a big problem. I actually filled them up with ice water during a hike last week (was an ATV trail with a massive frozen puddle that was actually not very frozen) and I managed to finish the hike without my feet freezing off. It wasn't comfortable of course, but it could have gone a lot worse. It's the fool proof system for the winter - even if you get your feet wet you'll be fine.
Rubber rain boots are the only true waterproof boot.
>Wellies are not suited for hiking
Why not? I've done plenty of hikes in mine.
>Wellies are not suited for hiking
Why not? I've done plenty of hikes in mine.
You'll wear them out in 2 years, I've done it to many pairs shepherding. Step in a puddle come winter and remember this post. And on the other side, don't wear your nice goretex hiking boots in the deep mud and crap, and clean and polish them well, they might last 8 years. I've got a pair of lowas that survived 5 years army service ran marathons in them and then a bit of farm abuse as well but at 10 years they are rooted. Wear both at the right time and place
They're called watershoes. Try it sometime.
>thin sock
>Bag
>Warm sock
>Bag
>Trail runners
Only useful for winter but saved me a lot of money lol
>zero breathability
>thinks this is an actual feasible idea
this is what fricking homeless people do out of desperation. walk five miles with you feet in an oven bag and you'll be standing in your own puddle.
I spent half a camping trip last September wearing plastic bags on my feet and it wasn't that bad, though I wasn't doing a ton of walking. I wouldn't recommend it as a go-to solution but it's a great way to deal with a soaker when you can't dry your shoes/boots out.
goretex, goretex and frickin goretex.
respray with water repellant now and then.
seriously ignore anyone who doesnt acknowledge goretex unless they provide proof they hike with 10x price hand made leather boots that might stay dry longer but also take longer to dry.
t. only use salomon
rubber boots is a valid option but damn they suck to hike in and once wet will remain wet untill you stop, take them off, drain them and dry them, you can walk a goretex boot dry within hours.
https://andrewskurka.com/waterproof-gore-tex-shoes-second-chance-complete-failure/
Is this wrong?
once im sober i could write an equally long article saying he is wrong and there is nothing you can do to test either against each other but trying each other to prove me wrong.
but then this is my always dry reliable af hiking boot and no poster or review can change that.
so yes he is wrong.
The article explains how Gore-Tex is supposed to work and why it fails. It’s not just “trust me bro.”
Goretex is waterproof and breathable, my paddling dry suit is proof enough for me, no article will prove me I am getting wet when I am staying dry, I am sure the same applies to boots, but then you seem hellbent on wanting goretex not to perform to specs
>it works for me
>therefor it will work for everyone
Oh ok, well I guess that’s very sound reasoning and completely destroys the article.
You can't argue with trips dumbass you can shove your article up your ass
>Goretex is waterproof and breathable
Not at the same time though.
I give up you're hopeless, you must think the earth is flat
That was my first reply, not everyone is the same person. With that said, what I said is a fact. You don't know how gortex works if you think it can be breathable while wet.
These boots got soaking wet in Sweden for me just walking through puddles, and a little bit of snow.
And in the summer I had to change socks 4 times a day and my feet still welted from sweat.
I would recommend buying real hiking boots with full leather + goretex. This merel, lowa, salomon, keen lightweight boots are really shit. They are for casual people doing casual stuff retreating to their cars and huts when the weather turns bad.
Almost nobody is talking about but gore-tex footwear stretch very badly so unlike this moron you should get properly sized footwear and make your guarantee work if it fail within 2 months.
>https://andrewskurka.com/waterproof-gore-tex-shoes-second-chance-complete-failure/
Those are the worst feet I have ever seen. How do you ruin your feet like that? He must be wearing his shoes at least three sizes too small.
>Those are the worst feet I have ever seen
My sweet summer child
Do trailrunner gays really walk around like this? squished welted, blistered toes. All because they can not wear boots?
Yeah this guy obviously has no idea what’s he’s doing. We should listen to randos on PrepHole instead.
>The article explains how Gore-Tex is supposed to work and why it fails. It’s not just “trust me bro.”
He's doing it wrong.
Goretex protects the padding from sweat from the inside and waxed leather + rubber protects from moisture from the outside.
That's why synthetic + goretex is mostly a joke. You can do day trips or hut tours with that to get some short term protection from rain showers. That's why its sold to tourists. its not good for long distance endurance athletes.
If you are hiking 50k/day for six months of the year running shoes are the only option. None of us do that though.
so your feet are going to get wet either from water coming in from the outside or from sweat trapped on the inside. usually it's better to just accept wetness and find a comfortable/warm system and take some time at lunch/camp to dry out your feet for a while. footwear that dries quickly after getting wet is almost always better than footwear that stays dry in the first place unless you are dealing with below freezing temps which has all kinds of other consideration.
goretex - it works***** with about 100 ways it doesn't work. anything goretex that is shorter than your ankle i would argue is pointless. goretex boots work but at some point the goretex layer is going to break from all the flexing footwear go through and then you're back to wet feet. accept footwear is a consumable product and this becomes less of an issue.
leather - it works**** with about 50 ways it doesn't. you definitely need to take care of leather and condition it to maintain it's water proofness. a lot of this conditioning makes it a lot less breathable which really kills the advantage of leather but it's up to you. again at some point you're going to flex a crease into these boots which will leak but it usually takes much longer than goretex.
rubber boots - i spend a lot of my time in these and they work really good for canoe/marshy type trips but again feet get totally roasted from just sitting in rubber the whole day and need to breath at some point. these also are terrible if you ever get water over the top as they take forever to dry. really this is the kind of solution if you are going to be constantly wading through less than knee deep water. waders of some type is also a solution here.
some kind of sock/bag inside normal shoes - this is a major winter mountaineering tradition and it works for the environment but it's more to keep moisture from going from your foot into the boot then freezing than it is to keep your feet dry.
Granger's waterproofing products , leather ,goretex, soft shell ,hard shell it's all waterproof if it stops just treat it again and it becomes waterproof again
>How to keep your feet dry?
I don't.
>I'm just walking in airy trail runners, they get wet as well but at least they dry quickly
This is what I do too. All the "waterproofing" shit works great, until it doesn't. As soon as some water finds its way over the top, then you're just fricked because it will take forever to dry out. I don't live or hike in sub-freezing areas though, so it might be different there.
Shellboots always work 100%. Shin-deep bogs, hip deep melting snow. Always dry. And river crossings suddenly are very easy because there is no padding that can soak up water.
Most of the time they are overkill, and boots with a good rubber rand and full leather outer + gore-tex inner + optional gaiters in shoulder seasons is all that is needed. On the rare occasion that the boot gets completely soaked you just use a plastic bag for 2 days until the boot is dry again. This happened exactly once over the last 1000 miles I did in Scandinavian bogs so it's not really a concern.
Once more this is proof enough for me that trailrunner wearing people mask their orthopedic issues by sneering enviously on bootchads.
And gore tex isn't a meme. It works much better for keeping your feet dry than synthetic or leather lining.
Leather lining is just more comfortable and takes a few days more to get completely soaked with sweat before you notice it's real downsides, i.e. feet never get warm again and are always wet, leather lining doesn't dry because the sweat penetrates the padding.
What doesn't work is boots that have no complete rubber rand or have synthetic parts on their outer material.
This is the ideal footwear for hiking fast and long distances over swamps, fells, and alpin tundra.
It does everything a trailrunner does except your feet will stay dry and warm, and you can actually have fun, stop, take break to do some fishing or photography or shooting airsoft at tourists.
You can buy rubber hiking boots by Skelerup but they're not super comfortable, you can also cover any boots you like in Shoe Good and it'll go a long way towards waterproofing but if water gets into them they'll be wet for ever
Waterproof socks are a good trick, no they're not waterproof fully, if you cross a river and get water over the top they'll fill up, but you can wear them inside wet boots and they stay dry.
They're ideal for wearing in camp if your boots are wet.