Different types of hiking Shoes and Boots
Hiking Shoes
There are so many kinds of hiking shoes and hiking boots are available in the market as sometimes it becomes quite difficult to choose among them. Some types of hiking shoes or boots do not fall in any category, but when it’s about their use, they can be divided into four main categories.
Hiking sandals or shoes that are used for outdoor casual walks, for walking in camp and during easy times at some serious hiking campaign, day-hiking boots can be used in short hikes or day hikes in some uneven and rough area, for multi-day trips backpacking boots are used and some real serious hikers use mountaineering boots.
These different categories of hiking boots are available at different prices according to their demands and purposes. So, you need to be a lot more careful to shop the right one for you and the thing that counts in this connection is to find out what sort of trip or travel you are planning and what will serve your purpose the best.
You may shock looking at their price tags, but you need not to be scared off and don’t make a mistake to buy one that doesn’t serve your purpose. It’s not a right thing to choose tennis shoes if you are considering a thirteen-mile day hike and similarly you need not to spend $200 for mountaineering shoes if you are planning for some short hikes. What you exactly need to do is to find out what can be the most suitable for you and your planned hike.
Hiking shoes that are particularly designed for moderate hiking or trail running are a bit higher in price than the usual sneakers. Most of the time, these shoes are available with a scree collar, but often they are not waterproof and their tread is not quite aggressive.
Hiking shoes work best when you are on short hikes on some dry and smooth trails where you don’t have to carry a lot of weight. Similarly, one needs to day-hiking or backpacking boots if one has to cross streams, walk on ice or snow and cover steep slopes with considerable weight.
Usually warmth, traction, dryness of feet and safety are considered the four basic purposes of different hiking shoes, but hiking sandals may not serve your purpose if you are looking for these four basic purposes. You just can’t use hiking sandals to hike in winter, as they can’t keep your feet warm. Similarly, when it’s about protection, these sandals may save your feet from sharp objects on the surface, but the sides of your feet are still unsafe from acute bushes and hard solid rocks. They can offer nice traction, but they can’t keep your feet dry. Hiking sandals can’t keep water out of your feet especially when you have to cross waters in your way. But they don’t keep water in as well and that’s why some hikers use these sandals when crossing some stream.
When it’s about hiking on rocky trails for longer or shorter period of time, you definitely need to give some thoughts to your hiking shoes. More hikers prefer to day-hiking shoes for this purpose as they are especially designed for such sort of hikes.
When conditions are hard and you have chosen some real serious hiking trip, backpacking shoes can rescue your feet in these conditions.
Rocky and sharp surfaces often come in the ways of serious hikers and in these rough and tough conditions, the boots that can serve your purpose the best are mountaineering boots. Mountaineering boots are also used icy and snowy mountains to keep feet protected and warm.