[pct-l] Five-Fingers

[David Ellzey]

Nathan,

I've used them for hikes up to 150 miles. They are pretty much like going barefoot with good protection against abrasion but not much else. I think I only did somewhere around 15 miles a day in them on average, as I would need better protection crossing the more brutal rocky sections. Also, you freeze you feet off in them potholing though snow although I've never seen anything dry so quickly after stream crossings. Finally, stepping on a pointy rock with your insole or stubbing your toe and really, really hurt possibly causing a long lasting injury.

Despite all of the downsides, I still enjoyed having them with me. They weight almost nothing and are insanely comfortable. I cannot stress enough that you need to spend a long time conditioning your feet prior to attempting long hikes with them. Everyone who wears shoes regularly has allowed the muscles and tendons in their arches to atrophy. If you do not take to time to gradually build that strength back up you are going to hurt yourself, possibly seriously.

When you are on trails, pay attention to foot placement. When you get too tired to do that each day, it's time to switch to shoes. It felt nice to change up the footwear each day too. Switching from an ether-light foot cover to an UL trail shoe and vice-versa pretty much eliminated repetition based foot injury. Another side benefit to wearing them is that you should have stronger feet even when you have shoes on. In theory that should translate into being less injury prone.

Dave (BigToe)

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Nathan Burgess
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 1:23 PM
To: pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Five-Fingers

Has anyone ever used them for extended hiking? I've heard about "bare foot bob" and that is neat, but what about hiking reliability? I think there could be some problems in extended snow crossings in the Sierra.

Nathan
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