[pct-l] feet larger in desert?

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

On Mar 13, 2010, at 12:57 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> Some women complain that they can?t find shoes sufficiently wide for
> long-distance hiking.  Many I know have begun to buy men?s? size  
> shoes which
> are wider for a given number size than the equivalent women?s shoe.

I do everything that Steel-Eye described including the above. Most of  
the time, women's shoes are not wide enough. The average women's shoe  
is a B width and the average men's shoe is a D width. Many times the  
shoes themselves are exactly the same, just different colors or  
styling for women. So buying the men's version gets you a little bit  
more width.

I do not believe a half inch above your longest toe is enough. In my  
opinion, you need a full inch or inch and a half at minimum. This  
places your toes at the widest part of the shoe.

If you can find extra wide shoes, that is even better because your  
toes want to splay apart on the downhills. If your shoes are not wide  
enough, you may end up with deformed toenails on the outer toes, as I  
have, or with toes that fold under each other and form stiff, sharp  
calluses, as I used to have. I have learned my lesson.

Your feet may not grow any further, but you may find that the size of  
shoe you are used to is actually smaller than you need.