Hiking Boot Weights

The weight of hiking boots make a big difference when hiking long distances. To me every extra gram makes a difference in the total weight when carried or worn. In the past five years I have tried an assorted group of hiking boots. Of course the anticipated weather may make a difference in boot selection. The following are some of the hiking boots/shoes I wear.

Teva sandals are very comfortable to hike in and give you plenty of room for swelling feet. You have to be careful not to stub your toe or turn your ankle. Disadvantages are that small rocks will occasionally get wedged under your foot and that your feet will get dirty even if you wear socks. Weight 694 grams.

Keen sandals are a bit more rugged than the teva. The toe is reinforced to protect from stubbing toes. There is plenty of toe room. You have less of a chance to get small pebbles under you foot. Your feet will still get dirty. They are not very comfortable in hiking in the snow or in cold temperatures unless you wear a neoprene sock. Weight 828 grams,

Low cut hybrid keen sandal is a cross between a sandal and a hiking boot. It has a closed body with a reinforced toe. Your feet keep clean with the closed body but you still have plenty of toe room. The disadvantage is that you need to keep tightening the shoe strings. The weight is 986 grams. There is a high top version of the hybrid that gives you more ankle support but you have to tie them in a special way at the top to keep them comfortable around the ankle. The weight is 1035 grams.

The older version of the Montrail HardRock low cut trail shoe is a very good hiking shoe. If you don't have to worry about ankle sprains and you want to move faster with a lighter weight shoe it is a good choice. It may be hard to find because it has been replaced with a slightly heavier shoe. It has good cushioning and it weights 790 grams.

A newer version of the Montrail HardRock trail shoe is another shoe like the one above. I have found that it doesn't last as long as the original and weighs 830 grams. Montrail has newer versions of the above shoes and they continue to improve on them every year.

The Montrail Gortex True ankle high hiking boot is the tank of all of my boots. It gives me great ankle support and it is water proof. The disadvantage is that it is heavier. It weighs 1725 grams.

I have learned over the years that a lighter shoe helps my knees last longer before I have to stop and it keeps my daily mileage high. I tend to stub my toes less with a lighter shoe when I am tired. In colder weather with snow or rain you can still wear a sandal or trail shoe if you wear a neoprene sock.

I pray that you won't have to go through all of the trials and tribulations of buying and trying all of these shoes before you find the best shoe for you. Don't let your shoes become old laying in the closet. Good hiking; Joshua 9:13 ......and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.

Summer day hike

There is nothing like taking a good summer day hike. Just recently I hiked about 8 miles on the AT from Petites Gap to Apple Orchard Falls in Virginia. The trick of a good day hike is to start early and end early before temperatures rise and take and drink lots of water.

I try to take a camera to document my progress along the trail. If something happens to me and if someone finds my camera they can tell approximately where I stopped hiking.

Look around you as you hike and observe the flowering plants:

Thin leaved sunflower

White boneset

Sweet Clover

Luna Moth

Wedged Rock Bridge

Highest point on the trail

Trail Magic

Spider web coated with moisture from clouds

Backpacking stoves

Many long distance backpackers carry a stove to cook or warm their meals on the trail. There are a few that like to carry foods that need no preparation to eat, like nuts and dried fruits and vegetables. I prefer to carry a stove to help rehydrate dehydrated meals. There are lots of different makes and models of stoves on the market. You can even make your own stove out of soft drink, beer or cat food cans. The type of hike will help you determine which stove to carry. On a short hike you are not restricted by weight but a longer hike requires you to lighten up on weight. There are trade offs using lighter weight stoves. Lighter stoves often have longer times to boil or to cook foods. I like to keep my pack weight for a 7 day backpacking trip under 11,350 grams (25 pounds) including food and water. I have tried many stoves and each stove has its own advantages and disadvantages.

It is a matter of preference to the type of stove you want to carry on a backpacking trip. I try to carry the lightest stove I can and with the least amount of fuel. I have found that carrying alcohol is safe and light. I have used the beer can stove in a blizzard and had no problem. The Bush Buddy uses wood for fuel but it has to be dry to burn. In a down pour I had to use a solid fuel cube to get a boil. The caldera cone works great but I don't have the patience to keep the seam from bending and binding.

Jetboil cannister stove

Good : Can boil one liter in a short period of time - 1 to 5 minutes, needs no windshield

Bad : Large size and weight 434 grams, needs gas cannister to work

Snow peak cannister stove

Good: Small size, short boil time 2 to 5 minutes

Bad : Needs wind shield, needs gas cannister, heavy 132 grams, unsteady unless a cannister support is used

Small cannister Isopro

Good: I can get about 9 to 10 boils per container

Bad: Gas under pressure, you have to carry it out when it is empty, heavy 236 grams - the 113 gram weight on the

can is the weight of the gas only

Large cannister ProIso

Good: Holds 220 grams of Isobutane/Propane almost twice the small container. Maybe you can get up to 15-20 boils per container.

Bad: Gas under pressure, heavy at 330 grams, you have to pack out the empty container

Brass alcohol stove

Good: Very indestructable, brass, you can regulate the burn

Bad: Heavy at 110 grams, must carry liquid fuel, alcohol

Bush Buddy

Good: A wood or solid fuel stove, you don't have to carry fuel

Bad: You need dry fuel (wood) to burn, heavy at 138 grams, large in size

Caldera cone

Good: Very light at 14 grams (minus cone) , primer plate, cone acts as wind brake and pot holder

Bad: Carry alcohol, one ounce can boil water, the cone tends to bend and is hard to put together

Soft drink can stove

Good: Light and efficient 8 grams

Bad: Must carry alcohol fuel and use a wind screen

Beer can alcohol stove

Good: You can use the soft drink can stove or the solid fuel cube

Bad: You can only boil only about a half liter of water, you need a wind screen, 80 grams

Proverbs 30:8 - Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:

Measuring backpack contents

How can we go light weight?

It is essential when backpacking to determine the best pack weight you should be carrying comfortably on your back. Pack weight will vary from season to season. Again I emphasize that you should strive to obtain the lightest pack weight possible and to maintain as much comfort as you can while hiking. I am older and I need to keep any extra weight off of my knees to keep from injuring them. Many people feel comfortable with 50 to 60 pound packs. But for the most part I have seen an abundance of extra hiking gear left in shelters to lighten distance hikers packs. I have determined that you should weigh every item that goes into the pack and on your body to get the lightest load possible. In this blog you will see the measuring scales I use and the units of measure that I believe are most accurate.

In order to get an accurate measure of the weight that you are carrying in your pack and on your body you must be able to accurately measure all gear.

I measure heavy gear on a larger scale purchased from Bass Pro Shop that measures gear from 0 to 44 pounds or 0 to 20 kilograms.

To weigh the lighter smaller items I use the Weight Watchers scale. With just a push of the button on the top you can toggle from ounces/pounds to grams/kilograms.

Weight Watchers scale

You must first decide which type of measurement you are going to use to measure your gear. Do you want to use tenths of an ounce, ounces and pounds or do you want to use grams and kilograms. I prefer to use grams and kilograms. The metric system is based on a scale of ten and it contains units (decigram, centigram, milligram) that are units of measure smaller than an ounce. Many pieces of gear may weigh less than a tenth of an ounce but combined with other like items can have a significant cumulative weight.

Weights and Measures

Kilogram 1,000 grams kg

Hectogram 100 grams hg

Decagram 10 grams dag

Gram 1 gram g

Decigram 0.1 grams 1/10 gram dg

Centigram 0.01 grams 1/100 cg

Milligram 0.001 gram 1/1000 mg

1 gram is equal to 0.035 ounce

1 pound is equal to 0.454 kg

1 ounce is equal to 28.35 grams

Everything in your pack and on your body adds weight. The less weight you carry the longer and faster you can backpack. The smaller the measuring unit the more accurately you can determine your carrying weight.

Lets look at some examples:

If you use the metric units of measure and you want to set you pack weight at 30 pounds you do the following:

Convert your base weight to kilograms.

30 pounds X 0.454 (kg/pound) = 13.62 kg

Convert to grams.

13.62 kg X 1,000 grams/kg = 13,620 grams

Now all you have to do is weigh all of your gear in grams until you get to 13,620 grams.

A 25 pound pack will weigh 11,350 grams and a 20 pound pack will weigh 9,080 grams.

On my next blog I will weigh some of the backpacking gear I carry on an extended backpacking trip.

Tennessee hike

In order to put some joy back into hiking after my freezing experience on Roan Mountain in Tennessee I decided to do some day hikes. I hiked a 15 mile section of the AT south of Damascus Virginia and a 6 mile section farther south of that. It was a real joy to hike with a 15 pound backpack compared to the 30 ponder I usually carry. I seemed to fly down the trail passing other backpackers for a change. Hiking in the sunshine was a treat. It had rained just days before my hike and rain was expected again after my hike. Every hiker I met had that "I am soaked" look about them. I recorded a few videos as I hiked along for your enjoyment.

Moving the AT

Going through cow pastures

Spittle bugs are insects that go through a nymph stage where the bug attaches to a stem of a plant and with their bodies produce a frothy mucus for protection, temperature control and to keep from drying out.

One of the scariest times to hike is during a thunderstorm. Just recently a female hiker was killed hiking on the AT near Hot Springs NC. I was hiking in a thunderstorm one time and I got off the trail in a hurry when I felt my hair beginning to stand straight up on my head before each lightening strike.

Remember

He who walks with integrity walks securely. Proverbs 10:9

Bicyle trip on the C&O Canal

A group of 7 men from Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond Virginia got together to go on a 35 mile bicycle ride of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) towpath. The ride started in Washington DC just below the Key Bridge to about 17.5 miles north toward Harpers Ferry West VA.

The trail paralleled the C&O canal and consisted mostly of compacted gravel and was relately flat.

Much of the canal is not in service but there are parts that are restored to original condition.

Our group ranged from the fairly young to some of the more mature.

One member of the group carried a cooler full of water, he converted a child carrier trailer into a camping, hiking and biking equipment trailer.

The trail passes Great Falls a very popular waterfalls in the area.

Many of the restored locks have taken on other multiple uses. In this picture a group of kayaks practice going over the falls of the locks backwards.

In another area a river boat reenacts how goods and materials were transported up and down the river through the lock system.

Great fellowship was had by all:

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

Solo hiking

I have been solo hiking for about 5 years. Not that I necessarily want to hike solo but because most people that will hike my pace are either still working or not in shape to hike. My last hike has taught me to always keep some dry clothes to sleep in. Always have a means of communication for times of emergency. I carry a cell phone and a SAT phone. Keep close tabs on the weather. Gloves even if they get wet can keep you from getting frost bite. The chill factor from high winds can drop temperatures well below the freezing point. Force yourself to eat and drink lots of water. Pack as light as possible and then lighten up even more. Keep sun tan lotion on at all times. Smart wool socks are well worth the price. A hat for night time can help keep you warm. A down jacket will save your life at night in extreme conditins. Always keep your hammock dry, the tarp can stay wet but keep the hammock dry. Keep your synthetic clothes away from flames and high heat, they melt. Water proof shoes are great in snow and slush. Be sure to keep God close to your heart. And remember Phil 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.