Boots or shoes at august-september in BC

Hi, I¨ll go to BC from august to erly october, problably I hiking around Canadian Rockies may be Yukon, I need to decide if a take shoes or boots, anybody can help me?

I live in BC and I am going to say shoes. However, it depends on how high up you are hiking as to whether or not you will encounter snow. The higher you go the more likely you are to be hiking through white stuff. I will hike just about anywhere in my Solomon trail runners and the snow I do run into usually isn’t that deep. Where I live (Kamloops) we often don’t get snow until close to Christmas anyway. In the mountains it can be a different story. You are asking a hard question because there can be a huge difference between the weather in BC and that of the Yukon.

Howie

I've hiked in Yukon a fair amount in the Kluane NP area. There are not that many trails and the country can be steep and rocky. For that I'd recommend boots. Other parts of Yukon are flatter, more rolling, and a good pair of trail shoes should suffice. For the mountains of western BC, I would definitely recommend boots for off-trail and snow hiking. Again, good trail runners would serve for on-trail hiking.

One thing you need to know. This is a bad year for forest fires. There are several fires burning right now. Some towns are on evacuation alert. Some hiking areas could likely be closed. We presently have a ban on all open fires for the entire province of British Columbia.

In BC parks we are not supposed to hike off trail.

Howie

Hi lazarus,

I'll give you the same answer I'd give you for the yukon question. I hike a lot in the BC rockies, and I've used *both* trailrunners and boots. What I take depends on where I am going and what sort of conditions I expect. To give you an example, Rockwall trail, kootenay national park, a 5 day relatively rugged hike but on maintained trails. This one I'd probably take trailrunners on (and have). Second example, my most recent trip in height of the rockies, where I was routefinding off trail in the mountains, and had some snow to contend with. This one I took boots (and I needed them, I'd have demolished my trailrunners)

So it really really depends on *where* you are going. If you are not sure, and you have comfortable boots, take boots. If you are comfortable and experienced in using trailrunners on the trail you might want to bring both with you and decide depending on where you are going (and when if snow becomes an issue)

Above all make sure you have both sets broken in, i.e. you are used to them and comfortable in them.

Thanks is very usefull your answer, there are forest fires around Nelson (the kootneys)?

Thanks so much, is true there are huge diference betwen BC and Yukon, but I like travel wihtout planing or not to much planing, oenly one question for Yukon in September my treking boots asolo with goretex can be useful or can be better a "specific Canadian Boots for the Yukon" another time when I was in Canada I saw a winter boots at the stores around Canada. I saw the wetherclimate page at internet and I saw very low temperatures (extrem minimum) but the average is gona be good for my boots.

Thanks

Hi Phat

Thanks a lot,