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Boots boots boots

// September 27th, 2005 // Personal

What scintillating topic could rob have chosen for today’s post you ask yourselves?

Maybe an in depth study of the migratory patterns of Ibexes, perhaps a gentle debate of the implications rising from a Communist government, or maybe he’s going to talk about shoes …

Yeah – you read that right – Shoes. Or more specifically, boots.

I wear a lot of boots … always have. In school I was locked at the centre of a battle over my right to wear Dr Martens (polished and hidden under long trousers you understand) which nearly resulted in my suspension!

I’ve worn DMs Cats Sidi’s (and that’s a whole other post) genuine para-boots from my friend the royal engineer and any number of different styles of walking boot.

It’s tricky to explain to someone who doesn’t hike just how difficult and important it can be to get the right footwear. I have a lovely pair of Scarpa boots that I inherited from my dad when his feet grew too large for them (heh – middle-age-tastic) but they are a size 9 and I am an 8.5 so I have to wear BIG socks with them to get them to fit. Plus they really are too good to wear for day to day tronking around.

So I went shopping to our local outdoorsy shop (millets can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!) and began to look through their selection of boots. Unfortunately being an 8.5 puts me way down on the list of sizes these places carry lots of and the first pair I liked were only available in a 9. I tried them anyway and sure enough they were a revisitation of the Scarpa scenario. I then proceeded to work my way through almost every boot in the store. I thought I’d got it cracked at one point but they felt like they were going to break wrong (yes boots do break) so I decided not to risk it.

The thing about boots is that you know almost as soon as your foot is in them whether they work or not. The lacing up and padding around the store is almost superfluous. You stick your foot in the right one and it’s “hello”! After forty minutes I was down to a shortlist of two… the downside? They were both Berghaus. Berghaus kit is lovely but stupidly expensive. Fortunately the lesser pair on my shortlist were on offer. The downside? They were the lesser pair, only 2 season with a very light sole indeed and I had fallen in love with their big brother which was a 3-4 season boot, heavy duty sole, lovely finishing but was £40 more…

In the end it was a no brainer – they last me for years and will see me across fell and cliff, tarmac and festival and the extra pennies would be worth it if they remained as good as they felt today.

I’ll be going for a walk this weekend if anyone fancies joining me Just don’t expect it to be anything less than a crash test for new shoes.