Hiking Sandals

Well, it all began in 1989 when I was backpacking in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. I had just done a 4 day trip in the Canadian Rockies, in to Mt. Assiniboine, in which I did 18 miles with a full pack on the last day. I have these monster leather hiking boots that were custom designed by the Marquis de Sade, and I'm too cheap to buy new ones. I always get both blisters and aching feet from the dang things. So I was going into the Wind River Range for 4 days and I decided to throw a pair of $4 beach sandals in my pack so I'd have something to wear at camp each night, to rest my feet. Well that worked terrifically - to the point that on the last day I was coming out and my feet were aching, and I decided I'd have enough of that. I was still a few miles from the trail head, but I figured if I twisted my angle or broke my leg at that point, I could still crawl back to the trail head. I was by God going to put those sandals on and try it! Well, it felt great and I made it with no problem. You learn good walking habits very quickly - like how not to stub your toes, how not to step in cactus bushes, etc. (actually, most of that I learned by thinking how painful it would be, rather than by actual experience - thank goodness). I understand that Teva's have been around prior to 1989, but mostly for river rafting and such. I had certainly never heard of them and am to my knowledge the first person dumb enough to hike deserts and mountains in sandals.

You also learn fairly quickly that beach sandals are mean viscous little things just laying in wait for a hint of water before they turn on you and try to kill you. With regular beach sandals, as soon as they see a puddle a mile off, they try to slip out from under you and get on top - they are treacherous around water. Also, they have no ankle straps, so it is easy to slide right out of them, especially on steep rocks and such. In any event, I survived the learning curve (You live and learn or you don't live long), and ended up hiking I think every major trail in Arches National Park, many in Capitol Reef, and many others in Arizona, and Utah in beach sandals that summer. Guess I'm blessed with strong ankles - I never missed the ankle support of boots. I'm also blessed (at least as long as I don't get frostbite) with feet that are not uncomfortable being very cold - like walking in snow.

That fall (1989) I moved to Boston and the following spring began to explore the White Mountains of New Hampshire in beach sandals, including a Memorial Day backpack up Lafayette peak, across several small snow patches. Sometime in the next couple of years Tevas began to show up in stores (such as REI). I picked up a pair, but even with them, the ankle straps tended to give me blisters if I didn't wear socks - so I often hiked in beach sandals and carried Tevas in case the going got really rough. I found that Tevas have pretty much the same traction as hiking boots for going up and down steep rocks (unlike beach sandals which will try to kill you).

Well, I've now succeeded in destroying 1 pair of Tevas, 1 pair of Merrill hiking sandals, and I'm on my second set of Tevas. I'm currently living in New Mexico and I've done slot canyons, 14,000 foot mountains, deserts, etc. with only hiking sandals. I've done map and compass, cross country through the desert with no trails (but lots of cactus) with hiking sandals. In 1996 I climbed Mt. Sneffels, a difficult 14'er in the San Juan range, with my (then) 2 year old daughter on my back, wearing hiking sandals. Mt. Sneffels has this god awful steep, thousand foot vertical scree slope that is like walking on ball bearings in the middle, and big hungry tippy boulders on the sides. We had just about reached the saddle at the top of the scree slope when someone knocked a rock loose and it bounced all the way back to the bottom - pretty steep. Anyways, we made it up and back down that without mishap. I just did Uncompaghre, another 14'er, in hiking sandals. This was challenging because it's been a heavy snow year and there were lots of snow fields forming a skirt below the final peak. I took my hiking boots and crampons, in case, but ended up crossing all of the snowfields wearing just hiking sandals and an ice axe (or quit imagining, I did have other clothes on too).

Of course, half the fun of wearing hiking sandals to do things like these, is the flabergasted looks you get from people, or the comments from people who haven' hike a quarter the number of miles I have, "You can't do THIS is THOSE!" Yeah, right. I had a ranger in Mesa Verde start to tell me she wasn't going to let me go on her ranger lead hike of some ruins, on paved paths no less, wearing hiking sandals, after I had just spent several weeks hiking and backpacking in hiking sandals in Utah canyon country among much more interesting Anasazi ruins.

I think the only time I have worn my hiking boots since my discovery of sandals in 1989, was a 6 day cross country backpacking trip in Newfoundland in 1993(?). That was pure bushwhacking, map and compass, no trails for the entire 6 days, in arctic alpine conditions.

Bottom line: They sure work for me. My feet have never been more comfortable. I have a number of friends who initially thought I was nuts, but eventually snuck out in the middle of the night and bought a pair "just for around the house". Next thing I know, they're off tramping around the trails wearing them. I guess it's contagious.

I sort of figure the idea of clamping bear traps on your feet and torturing yourself is a European invention, coming from the philosophy that we have to conquer nature rather than learn to live with it. If you have big enough contraptions on your feet, you can slog through anything and don't have to look at what you're stepping on. As I look at Anasazi footwear (sandals), and in deed most indigenous footwear from anyplace short of the arctic, it seems to me that it much more resembles hiking sandals than monster hiking boots. People who lived with the land and with nature, learned to watch where they put their feet and not step in the middle of a cactus patch.

Contact: Jack Sanders-Reed, Jack.Sanders-Reed@boeing.com