Hiker Deals

On a long enough trip everyone’s boots end up wet at one point or another. Once a boot or boots get wet it can make for miserable day hikes and even worse suffering when backpacking with a heavy pack. …actually, boots may not get wet on desert trip, but in that case it’s inevitable that some small desert animal will climb into someone’s boots during the night and give them a heart attack in the morning.

To dry boots quickly/overnight, remove the laces and pull the boot tongue all the way out of the boot. If the tongue won’t stay out use a stick or something to hold it out. Boots without a tongue to pull out should be gently held open with a stick. Place the opened boot under the tent vestibule and not inside the tent, or without a vestibule cover them with a t-shirt or thin fabric. The inside of a tent is always more humid than the outside, and unless it’s the middle of summer morning dew can re-wet boots that aren’t covered up by the tent fly or t-shirt.

During the daytime, wet boots should be taken off and opened up (laces removed & tongue out) at every stop longer than 30 minutes. Both after long stops and during shorter stops - change socks. A sock change will protect your feet from the friction of wet boots and the new pair of socks should be more dry than the ones that were in the boots during hiking.

For really wet boots or during times of constant rain, it is worth pulling plastic bags over regular socks or waterproof socks (also VBL socks at Amazon.com) before putting on boots. Just a warning when wearing plastic bag liners like this - change socks two or three times a day or sweat from your feet will wet out socks as badly as the wet boots would.