I’ve hiked a lot of rugged places in Chacos + socks, but I’m a little concerned about the southern PCT. As I understand it, there are stickers and spines everywhere there. Are my feet going to become pincushions?
Eric
Chacos on PCT - Pacific Crest Trail
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#2
You will get an occasional prick here and there but in large the Chaco’s work great in everywhere on the PCT except snow. Make sure you at least have some sneakers for snow, or your feet will feel like frozen lead blocks and you could hurt yourself on talus without feeling.
Waterproof neoprene socks might suffice, but I haven’t tested the Seal Skins.
Remember there could be snow in the San Jacintos, so you might want to think about that.
Go ahead with the Chacos, and bring some salve, like Burt’s Bees coconut foot salve. Apply every night that you feel any dryness or cracking, cover feet then with socks to let it sink in. Works for me (after I learned on the AT how painful cracking can be).
Tha Wookie
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#3
Our friend Wicked hiked the entire PCT in Chacos last year. I’ll never forget when we were on Whitney and this old-timer marveled at my and Sisu’s ability to hike in tennis shoes. Then Wicked came around the corner wearing his Chacos and the old man just about fainted. “Live long enough and you’ll see just about everything,” he said. Wicked said hiking through snow sucked, but is doable in Chacos. He used Bag Balm to keep cracking at bay.
raru
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#4
Just wanted to concur with The Wookie and Raru about the Chacos.
I hiked in my Chacos for all but a few miles of the PCT in the High Sierra, when I switched out to the sneakers I carried through this stretch. Sandals aren’t great at kicking steps, and the melting Sierra snow has a tendency to get between your foot and the footbed, which is COLD! I didn’t have any problems with the fresh snow I ran into in Washington, though. (Consolidated snow pack gets really slushy and granular, while the fresh stuff is better behaved.)
I wasn’t poked in the feet excessively in the south, nor did I ever stub a toe anywhere else. I think most of us sandal-wearers spent a fair amount of time pulling grass seeds from our socks in So. Cal, though.
The main issue is foot cracking, as mentioned by Wookie. I applied some type of skin balm (Aquaphor, Badger, etc.) twice per day, and still had one inch long open cracks behind the balls of both feet. These lasted from Agua Dulce straight through to Canada. They can hurt pretty badly. Most of the sandals hikers I met had the same problem, to variable degrees. Wicked had them, but he said his didn’t hurt. Ganj had some pretty bad cracking, as well. One hiker had to abandon the sandals alltogether. Most of us just put up with it.
Use the foot salve BEFORE your feet get dry.
I wear sandals because I can’t control blisters any other way. I’m not sure why other people wear them. If I could wear real shoes, I would, but after 2 thruhikes in sandals, I can honestly say that if you’re plagued with chronic blister problems while long-distance hiking, give the sandals a try.
The PCT lends itself nicely to sandals, as the foot path is pretty smooth, but the sand just eats through your socks. Plan on a steady resupply of socks if you hike in sandals.
Have fun out there!
Chipper
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#5
i ahve hiked thousand plus miles in sandals but the chaco and pct combination rocked me. the cracking was horrible. i dont mind snow, burrs and stickie prickleys no prob, but my feet were just becoming dry canyon lands. im just not good about salve. my new theory for the crackage (the old one was dry enviorn) is that the footbed of the chaco is abrasive. mad abrasive, yo! look at all those lines on that hard surface. its worse than barefoot all that rubbing against that washboard footbed. so sadly i converted back to tevas and have had no problems although i havent been on the pct with them to further test the theory.
ROCK ON SANDAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
milo
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#6
Thank you for the replies; they were very helpful. I’ve used sandals on sections of the CDT (northern Montana), AT (VT and NH), PCT (Sierras-- in summer, though), on the Olympic Coast, and for bushwhacking in Denali and elsewhere in Alaska.
I’ve found only a few drawbacks to Chacos. I’ve been able to control cracking by (a) wearing socks (b) applying Bag Balm regularly and © supergluing cracks that do form. From what y’all say, I’ll have to be especially vigilant on the southern PCT. I’m glad to hear that Bag Balm isn’t special and many salves work-- Bag Balm can be hard to find!
I’m also curious whether cracking problems could be reduced by keeping calluses down with some sort of exfoliating stuff. It seems like the cracking cycle is:
- a callus forms
- callus dries out and consequently shrinks
- the shrinkage forces it to crack open
Bag Balm attacks the problem at the second stage-- drying-- and superglue attacks the final stage-- when the cracks have formed. With an exfoliating (dead-skin removing) treatment, maybe we could also tackle the problem at the first step? Anyone tried this? (I’ve been reading Jon Vonhof’s “Fixing your Feet” and he talks a bit about the advantages of keeping calluses down and how to do it.)
A second minor drawback of Chacos is that-- as you mention-- sandals get chilly in snow. I can stand this for a little while, but long snowfields are COLD! :eek:
Finally, Chacos (without the toe loop, at least) really don’t work well for me on sidehills. They tend to rotate around my foot. I haven’t had a problem with this on trails-- which are usually pretty level-- but it has been a noticable problem when bushwhacking in backcountry and sometimes when following what-I-thought-was-the-trail on the CDT. In fact, sidehilling seems to put weird strains on Chacos for which they’re not designed. I actually had to repair some burst stitching! Because of this tendency to rotate, I’d be nervous with Chacos on steep snowfields where not losing my footing is essential.
These drawbacks of Chacos are pretty narrow. There are about a million things I love about hiking in Chacos: not even pausing at water barriers because there’s really nothing to get wet. Not worrying about athlete’s foot, not worrying about what crawled into my shoe, not worrying about invisible failures in padding or support.
The sheer simplicity gives a lot of benefits as well. For starters, there are very few potential points of abrasion, and they’re all very accessible and addressable. (I got so frustrated with New Balance because some irrelevant piece of padding would shred after a couple hundred miles and it would practically wreck the whole shoe; the ragged padding would start gouging a hole in my foot. So I’d duct tape and the have a gooey mass the next day… what a pain!)
I even like the fact that Chacos rotate around my foot when I step funny. In think this may have saved me from ankle sprains. If I were wearing a boot and put the side edge of it on a rock, the torque would twist my ankle. If I do that with a Chaco, the shoe rotates, causing less twisting force on my foot!
Eric
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#7
Eric, I concur with your prognosis of the cracking process. A pumice stone can help reduce calluses dramatically.
Also, I like the performance of Chacos like you said, how they move around when you need them. You’re the first person to mention that to me. But I am also convinced that it’s saved my ankles from time to time.
A strategy I use is to bring shoes for a stretch, and put them on every so often. I find it helps soften my calluses dramatically, but too much use reminds me why I wear sandals. It’s amazing how much sweat accumulates in the shoes! No wonder shoes stink so bad! But I never have blister problems regardless. I just prefer the feel of sandals.
Tha Wookie
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#8
a hiking buddy from 2003 had chacos all the way on the AT (i know this is for PCT). he used a small cheese grater that sort of looked like a rasp. you know, like a handle with a cheese grater-y part. but not a coarse grade one, a fine grade one. he liked it.
zero
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#10
Anyway… : )
Cracks aren’t always due to heavy callus formation, at least not for me. I had to take almost a month off trail last year due to a family death, and while I was away, I did some serious callus management (even though they weren’t very heavy to start with), hoping to help the cracking problem. (KeraSolv daily, filing, soaking, etc.) When I got back to trail, I had nice, happy, soft feet again, and they STILL cracked within 2 weeks, despite continued twice daily salve use and smoothing with an emery board.
All your feet have to be is DRY, and on the PCT, that’s a constant state. The dust just sucks up any moisture. I didn’t have any cracking problems on the AT, land of rain and mud.
Super glue didn’t work for me once the cracks got to be over about 1/2 inch long. It actually seemed to make things worse. When the glue quit and split open, the new crack was even deeper and hurt more because it was raw. I gave up using it and just kept piling on the salve.
I think some people are just going to have more problems in this department than others.
If you can control the cracking (or are willing to tolerate it, like most of us), then sandals can handle anything that the PCT has to dish out. That said, you should carry back up shoes in the High Sierra for safety. (really light ones, as you’ll resent having to carry them at all) No one should have to kick steps for you, and frostbite would really mess up your trail schedule.
Chipper