– The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog
  • Avalanches
  • Gear Reviews
    • Ski Reviews
    • Boot Reviews
    • Binding Reviews
    • Snowboard Splitboard
    • Book Reviews
    • Avalanche Beacon Reviews
    • Airbag Backpacks
    • Backcountry Electronics
    • Misc Gear Reviews
  • Podcast
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Ski Touring Basics
    • Boot Fitting
    • Fitness & Health
    • Gear Mods
  • Trip Reports
    • Fourteeners
    • Huts – Cabins – Lodges
    • Denali McKinley
    • 8,000 Meter Skiing
  • Stories
    • History
    • Humor
    • Land Use Issues
    • Evergreen Ski Touring
    • Poetry
  • Resources
    • All Posts Listed
    • 100 Recent Comments
    • Backcountry Skiing & Ski Touring Webcams
    • Ski Weights Comparison
    • Archives of WildSnow.com
    • Authors Page
    • Ski Touring Bindings
      • Trab TR2 Index and FAQ
      • Salomon Guardian & Tracker
      • Naxo Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Silvretta Pure Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Marker F10-12 Duke Baron
      • G3 Onyx Ski Binding FAQ
      • G3 ION Ski Touring Binding
      • Fritschi Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Fritschi Diamir Frame Bindings Mount DIY
      • Fritschi Diamir Bindings FAQ
      • Fritschi Tecton FAQ
      • Atomic Salomon Backland MTN
      • Dynafit Tri-Step Binding 2001-2003
      • Naxo randonnee alpine touring AT ski binding FAQ
      • Dynafit Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Dynafit Binding Frequently Asked Questions FAQ
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Review 1
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Page Two
    • History
      • Ski Touring Binding Museum
      • Trooper Traverse Intro & Index
      • Randonnee Ski Touring “AT” ski gear — What is Hip?
      • Chronology
    • Backcountry Skiing Core Glossary
    • Gear Review Policy & Disclosures

– The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog

Banner
  • Avalanches
  • Gear Reviews
    • Ski Reviews
    • Boot Reviews
    • Binding Reviews
    • Snowboard Splitboard
    • Book Reviews
    • Avalanche Beacon Reviews
    • Airbag Backpacks
    • Backcountry Electronics
    • Misc Gear Reviews
  • Podcast
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Ski Touring Basics
    • Boot Fitting
    • Fitness & Health
    • Gear Mods
  • Trip Reports
    • Fourteeners
    • Huts – Cabins – Lodges
    • Denali McKinley
    • 8,000 Meter Skiing
  • Stories
    • History
    • Humor
    • Land Use Issues
    • Evergreen Ski Touring
    • Poetry
  • Resources
    • All Posts Listed
    • 100 Recent Comments
    • Backcountry Skiing & Ski Touring Webcams
    • Ski Weights Comparison
    • Archives of WildSnow.com
    • Authors Page
    • Ski Touring Bindings
      • Trab TR2 Index and FAQ
      • Salomon Guardian & Tracker
      • Naxo Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Silvretta Pure Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Marker F10-12 Duke Baron
      • G3 Onyx Ski Binding FAQ
      • G3 ION Ski Touring Binding
      • Fritschi Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Fritschi Diamir Frame Bindings Mount DIY
      • Fritschi Diamir Bindings FAQ
      • Fritschi Tecton FAQ
      • Atomic Salomon Backland MTN
      • Dynafit Tri-Step Binding 2001-2003
      • Naxo randonnee alpine touring AT ski binding FAQ
      • Dynafit Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Dynafit Binding Frequently Asked Questions FAQ
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Review 1
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Page Two
    • History
      • Ski Touring Binding Museum
      • Trooper Traverse Intro & Index
      • Randonnee Ski Touring “AT” ski gear — What is Hip?
      • Chronology
    • Backcountry Skiing Core Glossary
    • Gear Review Policy & Disclosures
   

The Bunion Solution — Extreme Mod For Wide Feet

by Guest Blogger March 8, 2021
written by Guest Blogger March 8, 2021
The completed bunion retrofit, hole covered with Gear Aid Gore-Tex patch.

The completed bunion retrofit, hole covered with Gear Aid Gore-Tex patch.

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.

Mega-bunion:  either take a saw to the bunion or to the boot.

Mega-bunion: Either take a saw to the bunion or to the 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.”

The Scarpa Spirit 3 being transformed into a bunion model.

The Scarpa Spirit 3 being transformed into a bunion model.

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.

Pain-free skiing:  what a concept! Ted Kerasote in the Tetons. Photo by Lisa Dawson

Pain-free skiing: What a concept! Ted Kerasote in the Tetons. Photo: Lisa Dawson

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.

13 comments
0
FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
previous post
Using the Avalanche Forecast for Trip Planning
next post
Totally Deep Podcast 86 — Ross Herr of Dynafit

13 comments

Doug March 8, 2021 - 9:54 am

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!

Reply
Scott R March 8, 2021 - 10:01 am

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

Reply
phillip gallagher March 8, 2021 - 10:02 am

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.

Reply
Scott S Allen March 8, 2021 - 10:08 am

If the feet aren’t happy, nobody else is either!
Power to the people of the custom boot mod.

Reply
Matt Kinney March 8, 2021 - 10:35 am

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.

Reply
Tom March 8, 2021 - 11:05 am

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.

Reply
Tuck March 8, 2021 - 2:55 pm

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!

Reply
Peter March 9, 2021 - 2:05 am

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.

Reply
Jake March 9, 2021 - 2:39 am

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.

Reply
JD March 9, 2021 - 11:21 am

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.

Reply
Kam March 9, 2021 - 3:01 pm

I use yoga toes in the evening for about 30 minutes, or at work. It seems to make an irritated bunion calm down.

Reply
JD March 10, 2021 - 6:21 am

Thanks for the reply. I ordered some yoga toes. Seems like it is worth a try!

Reply
Larry March 15, 2021 - 8:46 am

Curious how you fix a cracked shell. I’ve got a pair of tlt 7s that need some reinforcement “patches”.

Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Anti-Spam Quiz:

Recent Comments

  • VTskier on Breaking Down the New BD Pieps Beacon Recall
  • Karl on Breaking Down the New BD Pieps Beacon Recall
  • Patrick on Breaking Down the New BD Pieps Beacon Recall
  • Slim on Breaking Down the New BD Pieps Beacon Recall
  • Jamie on Pocket Vs. Harness — Where Should You Wear Your Beacon?

Gear Reviews

  • Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD 115 W Touring Boot Review

    April 7, 2021
  • BCA Scepter Ski Pole Review — Updated and Improved

    April 6, 2021
  • Spring Touring Essentials for Day Trips, Overnights, and Ski Mountaineering

    March 29, 2021

Trip Reports

  • The Gothic Mountain Tour: Not Just a Training Race

    March 3, 2021
  • Making Turns and Skintracks at Bluebird Backcountry

    February 24, 2021
  • Celebrating the Low Danger, Low Angle Ski Tour

    February 16, 2021

Totally Deep Podcast

  • Totally Deep Podcast 86 — Ross Herr of Dynafit

    March 9, 2021
  • Totally Deep Podcast 85 — Serious Powder Talk with Doug & Randy

    February 25, 2021
  • Drinking Beer with the Bench Girls — Totally Deep Podcast 84

    February 12, 2021

Tips & Tricks

  • Spring Avalanche Drama (and How to Avoid It!)

    April 2, 2021
  • Spring Touring Essentials for Day Trips, Overnights, and Ski Mountaineering

    March 29, 2021
  • Pocket Vs. Harness — Where Should You Wear Your Beacon?

    March 18, 2021

Ski Touring Stories

  • Envisioning a Friendly, Busier Backcountry — Shaun Deutschlander Q&A

    January 18, 2021
  • Giving Myself the Gift of Backcountry

    January 15, 2021
  • Six Who Dared — Elk Mountains Traverse & Richard Compton Tribute

    January 7, 2021

Newsletter Sign-Up

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • About Lou Dawson
  • Authors Page
  • About
  • Contact
  • Copyright & Legal
  • Website Security

@2020 - All Rights Reserved. Designed and Developed by WildSnow


Back To Top

Read alsox

Ski Crampons — When To, When...

April 13, 2021

Ski Touring News Roundup Spring 2021

April 9, 2021

BCA Scepter Ski Pole Review —...

April 6, 2021