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Breathable Gaitahs


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  • #1278523
    Christopher Wilke
    Spectator

    @wilke7000

    Locale: Colorado

    I hate rocks in my shoes when I'm backpacking. I live near the Rocky Mountains. I like to wear gaiters while backpacking in the Rocky Mountains to keep my shoes rock free. I've been using MLD event gaiters for the past year but don't like overly sweaty feet. Hiking in 50F temps in MLD event gaiters is great. Hiking in 90F+ heat with MLD event gaiters makes my feet sweat like we're trying to save a dehydrated camel. Yeah, not good. I've had my eye on dirty girl gaiters but picked up some stretchy fabric from Rockywoods bargin bin while up there. Looked it up later and saw it was UA heat gear fabric. Pretty stretchy, pretty breathable and pretty durable feeling so I said to myself, "Self. This might make some nice gaiters." I also picked up some no slip elastic like on biking shorts to prevent slipping. Here's what was spawned.

    In Action
    Gaitahs 01

    Outside
    Gaitahs 02

    Inside
    Gaitahs 03

    Instep bungee cord detail
    Gaitahs 04

    Final Weight = 0.88oz each (1.76 for the pair)

    I love these gaiters. Very breathable, decent drying speed and they stay put pretty well. I'm going to have to try a different technique for sewing the no slip elastic as I've had a few sections of seams rip out while putting them on. Nothing that affects functionality but I'm sure I can do better. I just held the elastic stretched while sewing. Overall this work pretty well but not perfect. Any suggestions?

    #1773075
    Daryl and Daryl
    BPL Member

    @lyrad1

    Locale: Pacific Northwest, USA, Earth

    Nice solution to the problem. These gaitors would also keep mosquitoes from biting ankles in the gap between shoes and pants.

    #1773083
    Jerry Adams
    BPL Member

    @retiredjerry

    Locale: Oregon and Washington

    Great idea

    I usually wear longer gaiters but they're so heavy, been thinking about making something smaller, you have now stimulated ideas

    Maybe you don't need the loop that goes under the foot. Let gravity hold it down in place. If you were walking through snow the gaiter would rise up, but you're just trying to keep dirt out so maybe there's no force pushing the gaiter up. The loop will get chewed up by rocks, as in your picture, but it's easy to replace so I guess that doesn't matter.

    Maybe they'de stay in place if the elastic made the gaiter just slightly constrict against your ankle. Like have the gaiter form a sleeve and run a piece of elastic inside it. Maybe have a closure so you could adjust length of elastic.

    Since your ankle is at it's thinest right where the top of gaiter is it won't tend to ride up.

    If the fabric had enough stiffness it wouldn't collapse and the top go down.

    #1773307
    Christopher Wilke
    Spectator

    @wilke7000

    Locale: Colorado

    Daryl,
    The nice thing about the MLD gaitors is they have an elastic cord with cord lock at the top. At camp I would just tuck my pants into them, put on my wind shirt and head net and be mosquito free. These don't work quite as nice in that regard but not bad either.

    Thanks Jerry. Initially, I did not include the instep cord thinking the gripper elastic on the shoe side would be enough. It would stay put for a little while but eventually rode up. The motion of walking tends to make it slip. Once I added the cord, it stays in place the whole day. The gripper elastic works great on skin and the top part doesn't budge. The instep cord does get chewed up. The MLD gaiters have the same thing and I've replaced that cord a few times now. So far I haven't come up with a better solution though. I wanted breathable and those fabrics tend to be soft not stiff.

    #1773324
    Sam Farrington
    BPL Member

    @scfhome

    Locale: Chocorua NH, USA

    Christopher,

    The guide to my sewing machine has a diamond-shaped stitch that it recommended for sewing fabrics to elastic tapes. Tried it, and it is bombproof. Moreso than just a zig-zag stitch. It does not interfere with the stretch, and the stitch worked no matter how much the tape was stretched under the fabric during sewing. Of course I had to hold both ends of the materials while feeding them through the machine.

    #1776681
    Christopher Wilke
    Spectator

    @wilke7000

    Locale: Colorado

    Thanks for the tip Samuel. I looked at my sewing machine and it has a double diamond stitch option but I couldn't get it to work right. I'm not sure if it's a thread tension issue or what. I'll have to look into it more.

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