Are You Pleased With Your Comfort Related “Big 4”?

I don’t normally do this, but I gotta vent a little here. Maybe I’ll find some fellow hikers with the same problem so we can create a “support group”.

What the subject line refers to is not the big 4 when considering weight, but what I consider to be the big 4 when considering comfort. It seems to me that the items most difficult to settle on are shelter, sleeping bag (or quilt), pack and boots (or shoes). These are typically somewhat expensive items where most people cannot buy several different versions of them to try them all out at once. So over time one hopefully finds their “holy grail” item in each category.

For me, I am happy with three of the four. Mind you, it took a while, and several tries with all these items. I love my tents (Double Rainbow and Hilleberg Akto), my bags (3 WM bags), and my pack (McHale Popcan). Where the frustration comes in is with the boots. I have several different pairs of shoes and boots from several different manufacturers, and I still am not totally happy with any of them. The closest I ever got to satisfaction was some Nike Tallacs I used to use a few years ago. They were light and fit me like a glove. Unfortunately they wore out pretty quickly, and the newer versions don’t fit me well at all.

So now I have a pair of Salomons (Xpro X40…I think) that are almost perfect except that they don’t feel real stable due to the soft soles when my pack is over about 25 lbs (which is most of the time). I have a pair of Asolos (Fugitives) that are comfortable and stable, but are heavy and beat my feet to death on long days. Not to mention, they are really not good in hot weather. I am also trying out some trail runners that are comfortable, but don’t do real well for me on downhills.

So at any rate, if I could only find the holy grail of boots. Anyone else have this problem with any of their gear that would like to complain about it with me?

I loved my SD Halfmoon until I found out that lighter tents are out there, it still only weighs 4 lbs. 12 oz. The Squall doesn't have that much headroom if you ask me, even with a small rock under the pole, but you gotta love its weight. My WM bag isn't that warm when it gets around 30, it is rated 35, but I can get by. The Golite Gust pack isn't always comfortable, depends on how I pack it it seems. It has had up to about 37 lbs, before, over the 30 lb. recommended usage.

I like my Hennessy Hammock so far... I love my Ray Way quilt (alpine upgrade, very warm). I'm adding a homemade underquilt to see if I can live without the CCF pad. My pack has room to spare for my gear - Osprey Aura - but the frame bumps my back/hip bones a little too much when I take off the outer layer. Guess I've lost some of the natural padding I used to have. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> My new Saloman Elios shoes are way comfier than the predecessors (north face, unknown name, they were on sale....) I recently added Superfeet inserts to replace the thin orthotic that came with the Salomans and anticipate this will decrease the footsoreness of carrying a pack in them. The blisters are a thing of the past already, I just get a little sore.

I guess there’s always something to be improved on.

Boots: For the record, my holy grail of boots has been my teva terrafi2 sandals as I have backpacked in them from 25F to 110F. from monsoons to deserts, through rivers, and scree, w/o blisters or stubbed toes (knock on wood). You won’t find me w/o a coolmax sock accompanying the sandal.

Pack: I love the lightweight Mariposa (16oz) but in the summer, I sweat too much in it so I go back to my heaver Ghost (34oz) <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />.

Bag: I love my WM POD30 (17oz) , but I wish it had a full zip so I can take it in warmer weather. I take the heavier Caribou (20oz) in warmer weather (If my son doesn’t go with me). Maybe a quilt will solve this lightweight problem.

Tent: I always want the lightest tent out there. But there is a point where I say ‘it’s not worth it.’ I like my 2-man GG Squall classic at 24oz. Since the ‘One’ came out at 19oz, is it worth the 5oz weight savings at the ~same cost as a 2-man squall? Is it worth the loss of living room? For me, the ‘One’ would have to be cheaper and the tent would have to be 16oz. However, there’s a catch with that; The SMD Wild Oasis looks excellent but I don’t know if I could stand it in hot and humid summers.

Pad: (maybe this should be the big 5 <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />). I never know which of my pads to take. Decisions, decisions. Usually I take a heavier pad on low mileage trips and lighter pads on high mileage trips.

-Barry

After a lot (and I do mean a lot!) of getting, testing, rejecting, and jettisoning, I really am happy with my Big Four: Hubba tent, Western Mountaineering Megalite, Granite Gear Vapor Trail, and Vasque Breeze trail shoes (the Gore-Tex version; one of my favorite places has small streamlets sharing ravines with the trail, and I like walking the stream beds.) I'm even happy with my "backup" bag and shoes: a Western Mountaineering Mitylite (hoodless, for summer) and Vasque Sundowner Gore-Tex boots (for cold or deep snow.) In fact, I've finally reached the true Nirvana of being happy with all my gear and (for now, at least) not wanting to see if there's something better.

Like I said, for now. Hi, my name is Glenn, and I'm a recovering gearaholic...

I'm easy to please, so yes, I am fairly well contented with my present pack, tent, sleeping bag and boots. They are not the lightest possible items on the market, or the slickest, but they all provide me with adequate comfort and I can walk away from the trailhead for a full week with a 34 lb. pack including food and water.

I wear plain Vasque Breeze boots (not XCR). I don't get blisters in them. They dry quickly. They do seep dust, but I am not picky about that.

My tent is an REI Roadster. They don't make them anymore, but it keeps out the bugs and the rain and is big enough and light enough (3 lbs.) to suit my style. Also it only cost me about $100.

I take an REI Sub-Kilo bag. Again, not the most expensive or the lightest, but it does what I need it to do.

My pack is a no-name, off-brand pack that I have heavily modified for my use. It is exactly the right size to carry a week's worth of stuff. It doesn't chafe me, or cause sore spots. Again, it does what I want. I am satisfied. It cost me $45 in 2002.

My dogs are barkin' !!
I think its the feet and not the shoes. Perhaps you could approach the problem from a different angle. Maybe you could toughen your feet through training. If this were the first day of bootcamp and you got your new issue boots your feet would be hurting pretty bad. But after 3-4 weeks your boots would fit your feet like a glove. Or, if you were a begginer rock climber your feet would be in big trouble. But after some time in the shoes you would be like most climbers and start buying tighter shoes and enduring more pain. Point is - shoes are made to fit a wide range - getting that custom fit right off the shelf is not possible for all foot types. Training the feet to make them tougher is an option that could help alleviate some discomfort. You might consult a pediatrist for some techniques and cautions.
I have also noticed that if I wear the same shoe type everyday it helps. I used to wear Asolo boots at work and hiking. I would wear them if I went out to dinner of to a movie (rare). I also wore a pair to hike in. My feet were fine. Now I hate those boots - and I just got a new pair before I got good advice from this board and started wearing running shoes. Hardrocks. Now I wear running shoes everywhere.

Yeah, I agree with you on the toughening the feet up thing. I think that’s part of it. I still have other issues though. In my opinion, I think part of my problem is the size of my feet. They are probably between size 12 and 12.5. There are almost no manufacturers that make a size 12.5. So I am usually stuck getting a size 13, and having to cinch them up pretty good cause my feet are probably on the slight side of being medium volume.

At any rate, I have gotten to where I am fairly comfortable. I don’t want to start a Ray Jardine “love ‘em or hate ‘em” tangent so I won’t express my views on him here, but I will say that one of the few good tips I got from reading Beyond Backpacking was to rotate shoes. I do this with my exercising and training, and it has pretty much eliminated blisters and other issues for me.

You say earlier you are trying out some trail runners too.

My favorite shoe for years has been New Balance (and they definately make 12.5, as I wear 12.5 too), and more recently I pair it with green Superfeet. My current pair is the NB 470s (although I think these are wayy past being produced). I usually just buy them from a local department store for between $30-40, and buy two pairs once I've found one I like because NB usually is on to the next generation of shoe by the time I need another pair.

Looking online, I guess the shoe looking most like my 470s is either: 644, 873, or 811.

There is no Holy Grail. This we already know.

Optimal gear (nothing is Holy) depends on the subjective trip and subjective goals.

People often try to convince themselves that what they've acquired, partly by chance, partly by theoretical reasoning of various kinds.... is near to the optimum. This doesn't always happen, but it happens frequently.

The "TRUTH" is unknowable because much of it depends on the individual's subjectivity, which tends to shift around with time and circumstances.

Another point that occurs to me is, there is a tendency to think that gear matters more than it actually does. What matters mostly, is whether the trip is fun.

At present, I like Garmont brand for footwear on my personal feet.. Otherwise, weight, simplicity and price tend to be my leading personal criteria for gear selection.

Of course if critical gear completely fails, then fun is compromised. Simplicity tends to make this less likely. As in the relative simplicity of Black Diamond poles vs. Leki, or the relative simplicity of a tarp vs a tent. Thus, I wend my way down the path thinking my gear choices are near to optimum.....