Am I too minimalistic/masochistic

If your shoes were working for you, I don’t see a problem continuing with them. I generally subscribe to “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. ;-)

People around the world carry heavy loads without specialized footwear. Everyone’s body and comfort level is different.

I’ve seen Chinese workers carrying twice their body weight while wearing sandals make from tire treads.

You have hundreds of ancestors who had to carry their entire camp over the ridge or bring a 200-pound hind quarter of meglaloceros 10 miles back to their cave.  Their footwear didn’t an EVA midsole, arch support, anti-pronation stabilizers, or a speed-lacing system.

That said, I’d tell people to make changes slowly.  Don’t suddenly go shoeless or to minimal support.  There’s skin to toughen, connective tissue to build up, and even skills or a style of walking to learn.  When I go with minimal footwear, I’m more careful about foot placement on roots and rocks.

If evolution has given me perfectly adapted body features…why do I need glasses?

Oh wait…civilization has made me a wuss!

With loads like that minimal shoes should be inappropriate.
WRONG

Read what David T wrote. Shoes are a very recent invention. All the rest is marketing spin from the shoe companies. To be sure, if someone has spent their life wearing shoes and doing little exercise, they may need a transition period to bring their feet up to a reasonable strength – but probably not in your case.

David’s other comment – make changes slowly, is also very wise.

Cheers

Shoes are a very recent invention.

Clothes too. that’s why Roger skis without a shirt. The pants are painted on for modesty’s sake. Who needs clothes? for that matter, who needs a mattress?

and yet somehow, the vast majority of people prefer a mattress even though our bodies are paleo wired to sleep on the ground. But with years of conditioning you can ‘regain’ your paleo given form and prefer to do without. just like shoes.

“…why do I need glasses”

You would have been the flint knapper or sewing skins together.  The far-sighted folks would have using those spears and bringing you back the skins.

I’m not being flippant.  I really don’t think there evolved a “perfect human”, so much as a tribe that had a wider range of abilities would out-compete the neighboring tribe with less variety.  Far-/near-sightedness, fat/skinny, risk-taker/cautious, tall/short, fast healing/long-living (our inability to grow back limbs may have been a trade-off for a better immune system), dumb/smart, and all manner of internal plumbing and chemistry: fostering different gut bacteria, sickle-cell/malaria, lactose-digesting/intolerant, etc.

Also, shoes and glasses aren’t as necessary when somebody living past 45 years old was an oddity.

do you use walking poles ?

“You would have been the flint knapper or sewing skins together.” Says the scientist. Yes, it’s true, I went to university instead of a cattle ranch. I’m the bookish type. The number crunchers are all the most successful people around me, working for Apple and Google. Flint knappers all! Turns out that opposable thumbs really are the gold mine–for operating phones. Who knows what will turnout to be the best adaptations?

We’re evolv-ing; in the process. I imagine that better things are ahead for us, body wise. In the meantime, we continue to want or need to do things that we’re not optimally adapted for (going to the moon). I doubt that our ancestors were selected for rugged alpine mountain travel. Most never lived there. But we want to backpack. Personally, I use shoes since I can’t wait for my feet to evolve to handle the terrain.

Thanks everyone! Very good points.

Woubeir, yes I use hiking poles when I take loads. Maybe this helps to transfer impacts from legs to arms, at least a bit.

And to be fair, I don’t walk too much of a trail with the baby carrier. 10-12km is most likely. Recently she began to walk by herself the more or less flat sections. Yesterday she did very well 3km and then I put her in the carrier. So keep walking in minimal shoes looks right for me.

I agree that shoes is a recent invention. However, as Jeffrey pointed out – we were built to survive the wild not to backpack Alpine Ridges. And those who did climb (Ötzi, for example) took leather boots and appropriate clothes. For alpine climate I wouldn’t go barefoot. But there is quite a big range of conditions you can go barefoot. Especially here, in Israel with mild climate you can go barefoot almost year around. At start It hurts.

Gregory,

I too use walking poles (and pretty minimalistic trailrunners) and they help surely with thansfering the load from legs and back to arms when using a heavy (±18 kg) pack..

The past 8 years I have used cross country racing flats for most of my backpacking trips. Combined weight of both shoes is 10 ounces. The only problem is the shoes only last me about 6 months. Shoes are overrated, over marketed, and over hyped.