Minimalist/barefoot shoes and gaiters

I have a pair of Dirty Girl gaiters which do as your friend suggests and uses a piece of velcro on the heel instead of a string/strap under the foot. I haven't tried using them with my Trail Gloves but as long as you can get the velcro attached to the shoe it should work great. I've found Shoe Goo works ok for gluing the velcro on, the self adhesive stuff didn't hold up long for me, especially through water crossings.
The velcro only needs to be about an inch long so it shouldn't add much weight to your footwear system :)

Adam

I attached velcro to the sides of my barefoot shoes and made gators out of an old swimsuit from goodwill.

Works pretty good cost me $5 and 30 minutes.

Run the string through a piece of vinyl tubing or similar. Do a Google search and you can find gaiters that are manufactured this way.

NM

Why not just use a thin piece of strong wire – should hold up well, I'd think, without being too thick to be bothersome.

These NB110's breath really good, semi waterproof like em. I use these in all but hot sunny conditions!

The solution to this is some kind of direct to heal attachment, like velcro. Velcro isn't very good though because it can collect debris, get detached easily when hiking through brush or stepping in snow, and in some cases the velcro attached to the shoe can get ripped off without you noticing.

A more secure attachment is something I would like to see.
Something sticking off the back of the shoe and a small loop to slide over the thing sticking of the back of shoe would be the best. I guess you could drill a screw through the back of your shoe and sew a loop on your gaiters. There was a guy on the forum who did this but you need a non minimal shoe with a substantial sole to do it. Even if you stepped through brush it wouldn't pop off like velcro.

This is definitely something I've struggled with.

You could always sew gaiters directly into the shoes (roger caffin mentioned this).

5 fingers shoes seal perfectly around the ankles. In the summer around here we get grasslands with dense little grass quivers and stickers that will flood your shoes and torment you. The only shoes I wear in California grasslands during the summer are my leather vibram 5 fingers.

Here is a Recent Thread on the subject.

Clean shoes and McNett’s SeamGrip will assure a long lasting velcro attachment.

And this is Altra’s Lone Peak solution to fuzz collection and velcro protection –

Thanks everyone for tips and info. Had no idea about the other thread. Somewhere Anna is shaking her head at my shameful lack of searching BPL (sorry!).

What I am going to try first is the most simple possible solution, which is to simply remove the bottom strap and use the gaiters without them. These gaiters have elastic around the bottom, so maybe having no bottom strap will work (or at least work good enough).

If that doesn't work, I have some flat nylon webbing straps that is pretty tough that I will try and attach.

I am not crazy about the Velcro solutions, as it will get dirty and be tricky to attach to my shoes in the first place. I often go stomping ankle (and sometimes knee) deep in bogs/mud, so it would only be a matter of time before the Velcro fibers get jammed up with crud.

If you're banging around knee-deep in mud, you're gonna lose the gaiter with no strap at all.

I see two solutions:

1. Use barefoot shoes like the Vibram KSO or the New Balance reccomended above with an integrated gaiter. These won't need cleaning out, you save weight, and the string problem is done.

2. Use a pair of "barefoot" shoes that have a slight rise so that there's empty space in the midsection. A few different Inov-8 shoes have room in the middle. That way, the string won't touch the ground at all.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet. I have no experience with these (will be buying a pair shortly), but they seem like a good option for you. They are not waterproof, and you shoes will need to have laces for these to work.

Simblissity Levagaiter

They are unavailable for purchase till March 24th, apparently.

I've tried the levegaiters with minimalist shoes and was not a fan. Also used the Mt hardwear gaiters. Favorites are definitely Dirty Girls with minimalist shoes.

Instead of gluing velcro to the heel of the shoe, what about gluing on a small snap, like the ones in a Thermarest Snap Kit? Then you can sew a matching (male/female) snap onto the back of the gaiter — it stays in place, and no strap necessary.

(Edited a typo)