Why Lightweight Footwear?

 

 Drying footwear on the Pacific Northwest Trail

The weight of footwear has been a contentious subject for many decades. I've written about it many times over the years. It surfaced again recently with some comments on my choice of shoes and sandals for the Scottish Watershed walk. It seems that some people just don't accept you can go hiking in anything other than big boots. Yet I've done so for over thirty years. Here's a piece from quite a few years ago. I think it's still relevant. 

What do your boots weigh? Do you know? Does it matter? I think it does. Or rather I know it does and have done for over twenty years. It took me a while to learn though. For many years I wore standard leather boots, weighing around 2 kilos (70oz) a pair, for all my walking, including a round of the Munros and a walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. I noticed that my feet often felt hot and tired but I never put that down to my boots.

 

Backpacking in sandals in the High Sierra

Then I set off to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, 2700 miles from Mexico to Canada. I’d never attempted anything like this before and I was concerned that my feet stayed in good condition. Even in April southern California is hot and after a couple of days in my 2.25kg (5lb) leather boots with a 27kg (60lb) pack my feet were hot, sore and blistered and I was not at all happy. The terrain was fairly flat and I was mostly walking on wide trails or dirt roads so I decided, in desperation, to risk walking in the 480g (17oz) running shoes I was carrying for camp and town wear and which had been chosen purely for their light weight. The difference was astonishing. Released from the stiff, heavy blocks of leather my feet were cool and comfortable and felt much less pounded by the hard ground. Taking 1.8kg (4lbs) off my feet and putting it on my back turned out to be an excellent idea. I did wear the boots again in the snowbound High Sierra but once out of the snow I replaced both boots and running shoes with a pair of fabric/suede trail shoes that lasted the final 1,000 miles of the trail.

Wearing light footwear I can move faster and more precisely, gliding rather than trudging. I can also cover more miles for the same effort because I am lifting less weight with each step. Swinging heavy weights at the end of your legs is a good way to tire them. An old adage is that a pound on your feet equals five on your back (or, to put it metrically, 450 grams on your feet equals 2.25kg on your back). This may only be approximate but it certainly feels right. It means that on the PCT swopping my 2.25kg (5lb) boots for my 480g (17oz) shoes was equivalent to taking 7kg (15lbs) out of my pack even though my actual pack weight went up due to adding the boots.

Trail shoes on the Pacific Northwest Trail

In practice I’ve found over the years that my feet ache painfully after 20 kilometres (12 miles) or so in boots weighing 1350g (3lbs) and more. However I can cover twice that distance in footwear weighing half as much with little foot discomfort. This may seem surprising but just consider the difference in the weight lifted. My stride averages about 60cm (2 feet). That means I pick my feet up about 1660 times a kilometre (2500 times a mile), lifting 2240kg per kilometre (7500lbs a mile) with 1350 (3lb) boots but only 1120 kg (3750lbs) per kilometre (mile) in 675g (1.5lb) footwear. Over 25 kilometres (15 miles) that’s 56,000kg (112,500lbs) hefted with the heavier footwear but only 28,000kg (56,250lbs) with the lighter footwear. With that huge difference it’s not so surprising after all that heavier footwear is more tiring on the legs.

Those in favour of heavy boots argue that they provide ankle support and that stiffness and weight is required to deal with rough terrain and heavy loads. I don’t think either argument is valid.

Ankle support may indeed be necessary (though I think its importance is over-rated) but heavy boots aren’t needed to provide it. In fact, many medium and heavyweight boots offer no more ankle support than lightweight boots, trail shoes and off-road running shoes. To check the ankle support you can stand on the outer edge of a boot and see how much support your ankle has and how quickly it aches and feels the strain. The only boots I own that support my ankles comfortably in this position are my plastic ski touring boots. However these boots are very uncomfortable to walk in, as the stiff ankles restrict foot movement. When I have to walk in them I loosen the clips so my ankles can flex more freely.

 

In trail shoes on the GR20 in Corsica

Good footwear should hold your ankle in place over the sole but what is needed for this isn’t weight but a rigid support that cups the heel. Many years ago I tried a pair of boots without such supports. Despite the high ankles on rough terrain they offered no support at all and my ankles kept twisting sideways. The thickness of the sole makes a difference too. The closer your foot is to the ground the less strain on your ankle and the less likely you are to twist it. That’s why trail running shoes have thin soles.

Trail running shoes are also very light and flexible so your feet don’t tire and can quickly adapt to the terrain. Run in heavy, stiff boots and you’ll feel clumsy and unstable and your feet will quickly ache. The same effect isn’t felt so fast when walking but it is there. Flexible light footwear is better, even on steep rugged terrain.

 

The idea that splinting your feet in stiff heavy boots protects them and helps them support heavy loads puzzles me. I find that such boots restrict my normal foot movement so I feel more unstable and insecure than in lighter more flexible footwear. Footwear that doesn’t twist much along its length can be useful on rough ground, as it gives some support when traversing. However soles that don’t flex easily across the forefoot make me feel clumsy, as I can’t walk naturally or place my feet normally. Straining against the stiffness is tiring too. With flexible footwear I can place the whole of my foot on the ground, even on steep terrain, which I find more stable than balancing on heel or toe.

Rather than stiffness and weight what actually protect your feet are good shock absorption and a midsole that stops stones from being felt. With modern synthetic materials these need add little weight. They can be found on good walking sandals, as well as trail shoes and lightweight boots.

 

Backpacking in sandals on the Scottish Watershed Walk

The one exception to this is on steep hard snow or ice when crampons may be needed and a degree of stiffness is useful for kicking steps. Even then a fully rigid boot is only needed for technical climbing.

Overall, then, I think light footwear is more comfortable, less tiring and just as stable as heavy footwear. How light can you go? That mainly depends on the weather, particularly the temperature. From June to September I’m happy to walk in sandals anywhere in the British hills. One summer I walked the Southern Upland Way in sandals with no problems. In autumn and spring sandals can be a little cool though so then I prefer trail shoes or lightweight boots. I once spent ten days in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in October.The weather was cold and it rained or snowed most days and I often walked in snow. I wore trail shoes throughout, backed up with SealSkinz socks in the snow, and my feet felt fine. This may be too light for many people, at least at first, and very light footwear can feel insubstantial if you’re used to heavy boots. Once you get used to the freedom and lack of restriction it’s the heavy boots that feel strange and wrong however.

The tradition of heavy boots comes from mountaineering, from the need to kick steps up alpine couloirs and keep the feet warm on long glacier traverses. Even mountaineers wear lighter boots now though and walking boots have become less weighty. Even so I still think that many people are still wearing heavier footwear than they need, leading to unnecessarily tired feet.The words “lightweight” and “heavyweight” don’t have precise definitions of course. In my view footwear is lightweight if it weighs a maximum of 1200 grams (45oz).  

How heavy are your boots?