Comments on: 10 Things To Know Part 9: Keep Your Feet Warm

By: canwilf

canwilf — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:12:00 +0000

I used to get badly blackened big-toe nails – which would then fall off after a while, from a mild toe impact to the front of my touring boots.

Fixed this by taping each big-toe to the toe beside it. For some reason this stabilizes the big toe and also protects the nail.

No more blackened toe nails when doing this.

By: Lou

Lou — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:59:06 +0000

Wool next to the skin on the feet makes a HUGE difference. It doesn’t have to be 100% wool, the Smartwool socks work great, for example, and are what we’re taking on Denali. From what I understand, wool works better because it keeps insulating while it’s damp, while once synthetics are damp, they just sit there and conduct heat away from your feet. This has been my experience in years of testing.

But above all, fit is what’s important. Too tight, and you can damage your feet if it’s cold.

By: tob

tob — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:38:06 +0000

as someone who has to deal with chronically cold feet in the winter, and works outside all year round, i’ve found that using pure wool socks and liners if you use them helps. i’ve been told this has to do with synthetics depending on your body heat helping with the wicking process, while wool will wick moisture even if your feet are cold.

By: William

William — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:44:42 +0000

To Ryan, Melissa and all,

In general, too small/short a shoe/ boot liner, you get blackened nails and/or blisters on your toes. Too big/long and you get heel movement and blisters at the back of the foot. A rigid sole boot and loose bucks, ie touring mode, compounds the heel issues. As the fore foot flexes, the heel moves up and down in the heel pocket with each stride. In addition to taping hot spots with duct tape or mole skin, trying a smaller shell size, thicker boot liner (switch from a 9 mm to a 12 mm thick intuition liner for example), placing a shim under the boot liner or under the insole inside the liner boot may help the situation.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:03:15 +0000

Limiting heel blisters: I’ve had lots of issues with sore heels while skinning, mostly because my tele-boots (garmonts wiht G-fit liner) were a tad to big.

Taping the hotspots helps a great deal but if the heel is rubbing a lot against the liner, use sports- or duct tape to tape a band around the outside of the liner, right above the ankle, after you put your foot in it. That way you can secure the heel without tightening the buckles too much, and still maintain a flexible walk. Tele boots and bindings (without the new touring mode) is more prone to heel lift cause of the resistance in the binding but I think this could work with AT boots too.