What do I want in hiking boots?

"Yep, too right"

I figured as much; Just wanted to be sure. I'd have done the same in that situation. The rock looks pretty well weathered for freeing. No glory in doing a Wiley Coyote for a drink of water. Or any other reason for that matter.

Commando style? Dulfersitz?

Hi Tom

> The rock looks pretty well weathered for freeing.
Oh, a lot of that sandstone is very solid, and makes for superb friction climbing. We have some world-class cliffs for that – but we gave up serious rock-climbing many years ago. :-)

> Commando style?
Ah – this is where I am going to repeat the caution about NOT trying this if you are not VERY experienced.
Good leather glove and rope wrapped around wrist and through the hand. Makes like an abseil device, but if you bungle the glove bit it can rip the skin off your wrist … I do carry a BD ATC abseil device for bigger drops as well.

Cheers

Hmmmm. I think I'll stick to my Sticht Plate, especially on steeper drops. Not a lot of margin for error there. How near vertical are you willing to go with that technique?

That picture of the rocky trail in the PNW, I think I could hike that just fine in trail runners. I like the feeling of being nimble on my feet that I get with lighter shoes. I just can't abide by big clunky shoes anymore.

"Or am I paranoid? Do you keep reasonably dry feet with trail runners? When wouldn't you use trail runners?"

You're paranoid. The first time you take a river-walking trip where your feet are wet all the time you'll find out that it's not a big deal IF YOUR SHOES DRY FAST. The WORST situation is wet feet in boots or "waterproof" shoes that take hours or days to dry. I wear fast drying shoes and thin socks (Darn Tough Mesh Wool), I don't worry about getting wet feet.

The only time I wear boots is for hard class-2 and class-3 Sierra trips with steep scree slopes.

Amy

Piper S. wrote, "That picture of the rocky trail in the PNW, I think I could hike that just fine in trail runners. I like the feeling of being nimble on my feet that I get with lighter shoes. I just can't abide by big clunky shoes anymore."

I'm certainly not using big stiff boots, just light mid-highs, but they are boots, not shoes. A couple miles and 2000' elevation gain of this kind of stuff is hard on the bottoms of my feet and the water is *cold.* Dry the trail out a little and it is much less of an issue. I enjoy picking my way through the rocks and roots.

As far as drying out, if getting to camp with wet shoes, they don't dry much overnight and they are cold and wet in the morning. Moist, dewy conditions do nothing for drying anything overnight. 45-50F and 90% humidity make for morning shoes that are like fudgecicles and you can hear me whoop back at the trailhead when I put them on:)

Hi Tom

> Not a lot of margin for error there. How near vertical are you willing to go with that technique?
No, not a large margin. :-)

How close to vertical? Well, I wouldn't use it free-fall (although I think SAS may), but for short nearly vertical drops where I have my feet against the wall it is OK. Say 4 – 5 m no trouble. Bigger drops => less angle.

Cheers

I carry a long length of thin cordage and go fishing for water in steep sided creeks by tying on my pan in it's mesh bag. Your technique looks like good fun though!

"That's not how we use light joggers and friction shoes. Typically a 'smearing' technique works much better."

Fair enough, I'll give you this one. Last weekend I scrambled an unknown route up the west Scafell crags in my Lafuma X-lites and I was impressed with their grip for smearing. They did very well over the tops of the pointy boulders along the summit ridge too.

I'm almost converted, keep at it. :-)