Written by Ted Kerasote
When the English writer Eric Newby set out to go mountaineering in Afghanistan, he couldn’t find a pair of boots in all of England that would fit him. He had a pair specially made in Brescia, and upon seeing Newby’s feet, the Italian bootmaker remarked, as Newby relates in A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, “Sir, these are not the feet of a man, but of a monkey.” When I first read those lines, I thought the bootmaker was speaking of me.
From an early age my feet were so wide that I had to wear custom shoes. They only got wider. As one orthopedic surgeon diplomatically put it after taking off my left bunion, “You have poor foot architecture.” What he meant was, “You have the feet of a monkey.” My twelve-year-old niece, prone to hyperbole, was more graphic. “Uncle Ted,” she said, “your feet make me want to vomit.”
None of this stopped me from skiing, of course, and over the years, I stretched, punched out, melted, and otherwise modified more ski boots than could fit in the Wing of Tortured Feet at Chamonix’s Musée Alpin. Matters came to a head this winter after three long ascents of peaks in Grand Teton National Park. My remaining right bunion developed bursitis, swelled to almost the size of a golf ball, and an open blister formed on top of it. The pain was so acute, I couldn’t ski: not uphill, not downhill; I couldn’t even get my foot into my ski boot.
Whimpering, I went to see Matt Haviland, the master boot fitter at Hoback Sports in Jackson, who has worked on my boots for years. He warned me that my old Scarpa Spirit 3’s would probably not stand another punch. I said, “Try.” He did; they cracked; he patched them; they were still a chamber of horrors. He said, “You need new boots.” I tried nine, including Salomon’s alpine touring model, with its heat moldable shell. I spent three sessions at Hoback Sports, totaling five hours, trying to fit the Salomons. They remained so painful after skiing them that amputation began to seem a reasonable option.
At this point, I called Lou Dawson, the founder of WildSnow and a very old friend who has known me and my bad feet for many decades. Lou and I worked together at Outward Bound; we skied off the summit of Holy Cross when he was on his quest to ski all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; and we did one of the most gratifying ski traverses I’ve ever completed in the European Alps, the Silvretta, just the two of us, crisscrossing the Swiss-Austrian border, bagging peaks, and skiing gorgeous powder and corn. He said, “Stop fighting it. Cut a hole in the side of your boot.”
And so Matt Haviland did, covering the opening with two Gear Aid Tenacious Tape GORE-TEX Fabric Patches. I took my old boots out to Teton Pass and 3,000 vertical feet later I had an idiotic smile of happiness on my face. There was no pain, none, nada. What a concept: enough room for a big volume foot; not a performance fit, but a skiing-without-pain fit. And though the fit of my boot is looser, I’m skiing better. I suspect I’m not alone in my wide-foot struggles, and that thousands of other skiers would profit from taking a saw to their boots and making them roomier in this radical way.
Ted Kerasote has written for more than sixty periodicals, including Outside, Powder, The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, and Slate. He’s the author of seven books, including the national best seller Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. He can be reached at www.kerasote.com.
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13 comments
Do you have a picture of the finished product? I’d like to see what it came out like. That’s a good boot fitter you’ve got!
This is so great to hear! I had bursitis on my outside (pinky toe) side. It was debilitating. Ended up getting surgery and cutting off bone – semi amputation? And then I punched my boots even further. Net net, knock on wood, 1.5 years later it’s still working. The real test is on hot spring/summer days
Good to know that extreme boot surgery is also out there
The photo of your bunion is a testament to skiing until you can’t take the pain any more. When I used to coach kid’s soccer and we would all be sitting there putting on or taking off our shoes the kids would take a look at my feet and just gape at all the knobs and swelled up over time of cartilege bumps and wonder at the shape of my feet. Glad you figured out how to fix your boots so you can still ski the pow.
If the feet aren’t happy, nobody else is either!
Power to the people of the custom boot mod.
My wife had a bad bunion like that and lived with it forever. But before you do that to all your shoes or boots, last fall she got it cut off and was XC skiing/skating (which seriously pressures the scar) in 3 months and went down-hilling yesterday for the first time and she is stoked about not dealing with it anymore. It’s a solid option.
A couple of seasons ago I cut out a section in the medial aspect of the “throat” of my vulcans and TLT 6s when the pain on the top of my foot got too much – worked really well, & didn’t really adversely affect their downhill performance. I glued a 0.5mm neoprene gaiter into keep them dry (ish). It opened up a world of possibilities with mutilating expensive boots.
Fisher boots (Travers, ranger) and their much higher instep height have now fixed the issue for me.
While physicians wil tell you bunions are genetic, the truth is they’re caused by poor-fitting shoes. They can even resolve once proper shoes are worn. Might be a good next project.
Congrats on finding a solution for your skiing, where human-shaped boots just generally don’t exist.
Leave it to Lou to come up with the craziest idea, which of course works!
Exactly my thought on the shoes causing bunions. After I tried barefoot shoes with wide toe space it opened my eyes on how shoes can deform your feet.
I developed a tailors bunion this past fall and to head it off started wearing minimalist shoes and toe spacers. Amazing the difference it has made. I have dealt with pain on deli boys for years and it gave me hope of a solution for touring, downhill, and xcountry. Alas no off the shelf models to fit the wider tire box and still hold my heal. This mod looks awesome and I am very tempted to try on the outside of my tlts and dalbellos. Still waiting for a good classic ski option.
Jake,
What toe spacers have you been using? I am battling a bunion that has gotten worse this season and I have been trying to figure out if toe spacers are just snake oil.
I use yoga toes in the evening for about 30 minutes, or at work. It seems to make an irritated bunion calm down.
Thanks for the reply. I ordered some yoga toes. Seems like it is worth a try!
Curious how you fix a cracked shell. I’ve got a pair of tlt 7s that need some reinforcement “patches”.
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