[Philmont] Very fine line

Bill's post about blister treatment brings to mind a story on the toughest hiking boots I ever owned.
   
  I bought them in 1964for $19.95 from Eddie Baue back in the days before Eddie Bauer was a preppy clothes place. I paid $19.95 for them. Leatehr lined and stiff, very stiff Vibram Montagna soles. This was back in the ays when boots were nailed to innersoles and outer soled nailed and screwed to the inner soles. The heels are seperate in independent from the soles.
   
  I still have the boots and they are still serviceable. Their only defect is the fact that because of th design, the leather folds as you walk right on top of the nail bed of the big toe. I don't need to tell you how tender that spot is.
   
  It took three years to break them in and what speeded that process is that I wore them on a ten day trek through Quetico out of Charles L. Smmers (now Northern Tier).
   
  That soaking for ten days never phased the boots, in fact it helped to mould them to my feet or my feet to the boots.
   
  To wear them without generating blisters on both big toes, one must cut a small oval patch of moleskin the longest part that of the diameter of a dine and apply to the toe nail and toe bed to provide protection. It was a messy and time consuming proposition but it worked and worked well. As I got older and more financially independent, I bought new boots and hung the old ones over a rafter in my shop Philmont gate style.
   
  First point I'm making is the old and messy as they are, moleskins work well for an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.
   
  Second point is that in choosing boots, you want boots that are not as tough as you are on the inside, but tougher on the outside than the rocks you walk on. That is a vvery fine line indeed, but the key to comfortable, trouble free footwear.
   
  Good luck in finding and straddling that very fine line.
   
  John LeBlanc

       
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Received on Sat Dec 15 21:37:23 2007