Custom made hiking boots?

[Ron]

I'm not out there to prove anything or to suffer in the elements. I bring my luxury items and some redundant forms of safety.

My uncle is of the Ray Jardine mindset and having backpacked with him I like my way better. Sometimes my minimalist friends even benefit from my over preparation. Like my buddy whose lightweight foot wear separated at the sole and was happy to use my emergency wire ties to hold it all together :)

When I'm too old to carry my gear comfortably I'll get a mule or lama, lol.  

Hike your own hike.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I think we're talking past each other on this one.

Most of the minimalist methods are more comfortable, more effective, and safer than the conventional methods.  Counterintuitive but true.  That's why I encourage people to actually get out there and try it, rather than assume that it can't be so.  The benefits are more than just the weight reduction.

For instance, I would choose a tarp over a tent even if I had a mule to carry the weight for me.  I've given both forms of shelter an honest evaluation, and I tend to stay warmer and drier with the tarp.  

Gives my backpacking partners fits, sometimes.  They want to work together to share the load ("I'll carry the tent, you carry the stove"), but I don't want to bring any of that stuff with me ("No thanks, I'd rather use my tarp and a small cook fire").

So yeah, hike your own hike.  Just be sure you've given both ways a fair try before concluding you like one way better than the other.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I think we're talking past each other on this one.

Most of the minimalist methods are more comfortable, more effective, and safer than the conventional methods.  Counterintuitive but true.  That's why I encourage people to actually get out there and try it, rather than assume that it can't be so.  The benefits are more than just the weight reduction.

For instance, I would choose a tarp over a tent even if I had a mule to carry the weight for me.  I've given both forms of shelter an honest evaluation, and I tend to stay warmer and drier with the tarp.  

Gives my backpacking partners fits, sometimes.  They want to work together to share the load ("I'll carry the tent, you carry the stove"), but I don't want to bring any of that stuff with me ("No thanks, I'd rather use my tarp and a small cook fire").

So yeah, hike your own hike.  Just be sure you've given both ways a fair try before concluding you like one way better than the other.

just because your way works great for you doesn't mean it works great for us.

just because it works best for you, doesn't mean it is the best.

although i have a feeling this statement is going to just hit a brick wall and bounce right off. 

[mgdavis]

I think we're talking past each other on this one.

Most of the minimalist methods are more comfortable, more effective, and safer than the conventional methods.  Counterintuitive but true.  That's why I encourage people to actually get out there and try it, rather than assume that it can't be so.  The benefits are more than just the weight reduction.

For instance, I would choose a tarp over a tent even if I had someone else to carry the weight for me.  I've given both forms of shelter an honest evaluation, and I tend to stay warmer and drier with the tarp.  

Gives my backpacking partners fits, sometimes.  They want to work together to share the load ("I'll carry the tent, you carry the stove"), but I don't want to bring any of that stuff with me ("No thanks, I'd rather use my tarp and small cook fire").

It depends on where you're at, too. Many of the trails I hike don't allow fires over 3500', IIRC, so stoves are a must if you want hot food. I frequently get into old snow well into summer, which would make tennis shoes pretty miserable.

I have left the tent body at home before, just using the footprint and fly. I ended up sleeping on snow, and really would have appreciated the extra warmth and wind block the body provided. I'm not saying I won't do it again, but I won't do it in September in the mountains anymore.

Another trip, in June or July, ended up with us pitching the tents on three or four feet of snow and in a decent wind. If I hadn't had 50ft of paracord to turn into guy lines for both tents it would have been a pretty miserable night.

To each his own, hike your own hike, etc.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

just because your way works great for you doesn't mean it works great for us.

just because it works best for you, doesn't mean it is the best.

although i have a feeling this statement is going to just hit a brick wall and bounce right off.  

It's like the handgun discussion.  There are better ways and worse ways to do things.  If you take time to learn and understand the "better" way and then conclude that you'd rather do something different, that's cool.  But don't be one of those tools who assumes they know without learning, thereby denying yourself the chance to actually know something useful.

Maybe the better methods aren't right for you personally, but having never tried it, how would you know?  You wouldn't.  

[BlueStarLizzard]

and there is that brick wall

the truly superior way would work for every one, everytime.

did i not say earily to learn it all and then adapt what you learn for your personal needs/wants?

what i am annoyed about is that your way (as per usual) seems to be the only right way. what on earth makes your way, the only way, so superior? and how do you type without your ego crushing the keyboard?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Hokay.  

Look, it's like this.  I've backpacked with plenty of people like you over the years who've sworn that these methods wouldn't work for them.  

Then they tried it out.  

I was one of those people too, once.  I swore it wouldn't be better.  Maybe those crazy methods worked OK for them, but surely they wouldn't work well for me.  And, honestly, they probably didn't work all that well for them, either.  Dangerous and uncomfortable, gotta be.  No doubt about it.

Then I tried it out, too.

If you don't want to use any of the minimalist methods, that's fine with me.  But unless you've given 'em a thorough evaluation, and taken the time to really understand it all, and put in as many miles as I have (not to mention as many miles as Ray and some of the others have), don't try to tell me that they're no good and won't work for you.  I've seen this story too many times before.

One thing I know for sure is that nobody I've met who really, truly, honestly tries this stuff out ever goes back to the old ways.  So yeah, my ego and I are both fully convinced these ways are better.  

 

[De Selby]

And how do you decide if someone "truly, honestly" tried out minimalist hiking?  Why, if they continue to do it, of course!

Equipment is there because nature won't always provide what you need.  It's fine to go minimalist, but you can't control what's laying out there in the woods for you to use, so if there needs to be a guaranteed source of something (and that is the case on longer hikes, imho), there needs to be something carried in the pack to supply it.

[sanglant]

the best way is to have someone bringing in what you don't want[or can't {when you've got 15+ scouts to feed it's hard to carry enough food }] to carry, don't always work out though.

[Ron]

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with striving to lighten the load.

My solo tent is under 3lbs, my 40 degree sleeping bag weighs 24 oz and my 15 degree bag is just at 2lb's. My tent is so light I decided I could afford to also carry a sil-tarp at 14oz. All my gear is light, I just bring a lot of it, lol.

I appreciate the minimalists and have incorporated some of their ideas into my kit. At the end of the day though I'm bringing what I'm bringing because it is what I deem responsible and safe.

My minimalist friends have also been happy to share my tarp that we used as our kitchen during a torrential downpour at the end of the day. The mood went from gloomy to downright giddy when they realized we had a place to sit around, eat and weren't going to be confined to our individual shelters while waiting out the rain.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

And how do you decide if someone "truly, honestly" tried out minimalist hiking?  Why, if they continue to do it, of course!

This is one of those areas where it's pretty easy to tell when someone is talking from experience or spouting off from their 5th point of contact about what "must" be true.

Equipment is there because nature won't always provide what you need.  It's fine to go minimalist, but you can't control what's laying out there in the woods for you to use, so if there needs to be a guaranteed source of something (and that is the case on longer hikes, imho), there needs to be something carried in the pack to supply it.

Agreed.  If there's something you need, bring it.  Bring the most effective, most reliable form of it you can.  This is where the new style came from, long distance thru hikers who got tired of using stuff that didn't work well.  People realized their old heavy conventional stuff was unsatisfactory and began experimenting with other things.  2,000 mile hikes with lots people all experimenting with different gear and swapping ideas makes a marvelous environment for evolving better kit.

[Ron]

We should have more backpacking/hiking threads!

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Here's an idea to swap around.

Weigh your sleeping bag, in the stuff sack, on an accurate scale.  Then sleep in it all night in a tent in the backyard.  Weigh the sleeping bag again in the morning as soon as you get up, and note how much weight it gained overnight.

Let the bag dry out, return to its original weight, then repeat the experiment sleeping under a well-pitched tarp instead of the tent.

This is what ultimately sold me on tarps.  I was forced to consider the possibility that they better after a tarp-using friend bailed me out on a trip.  My tent had failed (a seam split and one of the poles buckled) and he let me stay with him under his shelter.  I was shocked to wake up warmer and drier than I had any time sleeping in my tent.  Took a bit of research and experimentation reveal why the tarp was better, but that trip was what kicked me out of my old habits and got me started.

[Ron]

What type of tarp are you using?

I've toyed around with the idea of using my tarp as my primary shelter on a trip as an experiment.

Having said that I've been in some crazy weather before and I was very happy to be in my "bomb proof" tent. I'm talking 50mph gusts and sideways rain with temps in the high thirties, low forties. Not a situation where you want to mess around.

You ever seen Shug's videos on youtube? The guy camps in a hammock and uses an alcohol stove in minus 26 temps, lol.

With skills you can be minimalist I realize, but at some point I say why? I'm a strong guy and I like bringing my gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnoo4BPe2eo

  

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

www.owareusa.com

I use their Cat 3 tarp, although I find it a bit short (or maybe I'm too tall) and I'd like to make my own.  Some day...

One of the cool things about tarps is that you can change their pitch to accommodate different kinds of weather.  Heavy gusts of wind and rain?  Pitch it low and flat so that it doesn't catch any of the wind.  This extends the sides outward, farther away from you, giving you plenty of protection from rain coming under the sides.  And since it's lower and flatter it avoids wind loading, which in a tent could be a threat to the seems, zippers, and poles.  So the tarp has a "robustness" advantage vs a tent, and the advantage increases the harder the wind blows.  And being so simple, tarps are much easier to repair and jury-rig back into service in case they do break somehow.  I had a corner tie-down loop pull out of an older tarp once, it was really easy to use a sheet-bend knot to tie it down and keep going.  I've had tents fail on trips too, but I've never been able to fix one up in the field with any success.

Anyway, in calm weather you pitch a tarp high and tall and open, all you really need is to keep the dew fall off of your bag.  That gives you lots of luxurious space for your sleeping bag, pack, boots, dirty clothes, cooking gear (if you're safe to keep it where you sleep), etc.  The Oware Cat 3 is designed as a 3 person shelter, and it's palatial with just me under it.

Either way, you'll get much better ventilation and no moisture buildup in your sleeping bag.  This is especially important in the rain, where a tent can keep you from getting soaked from rainwater, but can't keep you from getting wet from condensation from inside the tent.  The higher the humidity, the more a tent-camper will accumulate dampness inside the tent and sleeping bag, and the colder he'll be.  Even in a heavy rain a tarp allows enough cross ventilation to keep things mostly dry, and therefore much warmer.  This is really apparent on trips when you're stuck in your sehlter for several days in a row due to weather.  You can feel the dampness creep in and rob you of heat when you're stuck in a tent, but I've never experienced the same effect in a tarp.

I don't know if you've read Ray Jardine's backpacking book, but it gives lots of information on the advantages of tarps, how to pitch them, why they're better than tents, and even how to make a good, usable tarp out of hardware store sheet plastic.  Definitely worth reading.

[Ron]

Interesting, seems like my tarp would in those configurations you describe. I have a pretty pricey tarp, Integral Designs SilTarp, very light and built well.

As for the OP and the search for custom boots...lol...I ran across this link this morning:

http://www.merrellfootlab.com/gallery.htm

[mgdavis]

Wow, those are beautifully crafted. I'm scared to know how much they cost.

[dm1333]

$1200 for a pair of hiking boots, according to the website. 

I have a pair of Merrel hiking boots and a pair of Merrel cross country ski boots and can vouch for the quality of their boots.  The ski boots were bought in 1994 but were made in 1990 or so, my hiking boots in 2008.  I wouldn't hesitate to contact Mr. Merrel for a pair of custom boots if you really need them.

As far as the side bar conversation about ultra light hiking gear I would LOVE to camp next to one of you tarp guys on Michigan's upper peninsula in June.  I might even bring a spare tent to rent out!   I've spend plenty of nights sleeping under the stars, under a tarp, under a Henry Shires tent and under a much heavier Eureka tent and think it is ridiculous that you are arguing about this.