A Post About Hiking Boots
Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 12:35PM 
Okay. Right up front. If you don't hike, and aren't much on the great outdoors, you'll probably think I'm insane. Or...maybe not. Maybe you have your own story about some article of clothing or gear that took on its own meaning over the years. If so, please do comment and tell me. I'll feel much better.
I finally broke down and bought a new pair of hiking boots to replace my old Birkenstock Rockfords. After nine years and what I very conservatively estimate to be 3,000 to 4,000 miles together. About the equivalent of lacing them up in New York City and walking home to the coast of California, only much more gradual. These old boots have had a complete new molded sole fused onto them four times. They've had their footbeds replaced five times. They weigh a tiny bit less than an anvil, but I never minded. Why did I buy a new pair? Because the Rockford has been discontinued. So now I can't get new footbeds, and the resole people can't get soles to fuse on. I'd say goodbye, but, truthfully, they're just going to the back of my closet. Never again will I have to worry that my boots will get lost in the mail on their way to be resoled. Never again will I have to wait for a time when I can do without them for three weeks before mailing them away. My old boots just became my spares.
And, yet, bizarrely, I will still wax sentimental. Go figure.
Here we are together on the top of (the aptly named) Dead Woman's Pass in the Andes Mountains, on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. And on the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon.
And on the infamous Knife Edge ascent to Maine's Mt. Katahdin. And on top of the darn thing. Could I have done it without them? Well, that's a misleading question. I could have done it with other boots. But I didn't. I did it with these.
They're even seen here strapped into snow shoes on the way to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Redwoods one winter in Yosemite.
And everybody laughed at me when I showed them the photos from my first Grand Canyon day hike, because I took a picture of my boots afterwards. But there's something about that red dirt. It's like you pick up a layer of the Grand Canyon and bring it up to the rim with you. Sounds weird, maybe, but...it just doesn't look like any other dirt in the world.
Okay, enough about this. Time to move on. In December I'm going down to the bottom of the Canyon again, and I'll get the new boots covered with that same beautiful red dust. And, knowing me, I'll probably snap a picture. That's just the kind of crazy fool I am.
Reader Comments (8)
Dead Woman's Pass and Knife Edge? You could write some great crime fiction based in those places! :D
I've had the same winter hat for over 10 years now. I bought it to go to Canada with back in 2001 and it's been to a few other places over the years. It gets lost every now and then which results in me buying a new hat (but I'm never quite happy with the new hat) and then (thankfully) my old winter hat turns up again.
I love that top photo of your hiking boots! I bet some amazing stories could be told by those two old soles!
I think it's so cool that people are leaving comments on my odd hiking boots post. Old soles. A pun?
LOL!!!! I totally understand!!! It is so hard to part with those wonderful friends of wardrobe and wear that have seen the world with you and travel the greatest journeys!! Bravo grand boots!! Enjoy your well earned rest as you bump about the closet recounting the good ol' days!!!!
Not hiking boots, but if you ask sometime when I'm all decked out in my fancy robes, I'll show you my old green "comfort shirt." It was the shirt I wore to take my exams in college, and the shirt I put on when the gray, dull winter skies matched my mood. It was the first shirt I bought in the men's section and it grew soft--almost sueded--with age and wear. I went through one bout of sadness when I realized it was too tattered and stained to wear in public. But I was well and truly depressed when I realized that I risked it falling to pieces if it went through the wash even a few more times. It felt like redemption (an appropriately religious word, I guess,) when during the planning of my ordination, my mother-in-law asked if she could commission a robe made just for me and the artist/seamstress who was going to create it asked me, "Is there any special piece of clothing we could incorporate into it?" So now, if you look closely, you'll see the softest, well-worn green cotten peeking out of the inset seams all down the arms and back of my robe. And when I wear the stole that was made by another dear friend, you'll see among the quilted pieces two deep green cuffs, buttons and all.
What a wonderful story, Sean. I hope I get a chance to check it out.
Birkenstock used to make a hiking boot? Now I'm sad I didn't know while they still did, especially given how hard it is to find hiking boots that do fit my (wide-toed, narrow-heeled) foot!
I totally get why someone would wax poetic about hiking boots ... when I spend too much money on shoes, it's almost always on shoes to walk or hike in.
You know, I actually think they still might. I think it's jut that one style (Rockford) that's discontinued. It would be worth searching online (or in a Birkenstock store) to find out.