Zion National Superhighway

Over the last couple of days you may have noticed how Ian’s footwear kept changing, and how he went barefoot on the Angel’s Landing trail.

There’s a tale to tell.

I mentioned in yesterday’s entry that I was getting a bit footsore. I normally just don’t put that much mileage (8.5 miles followed by 5.4 miles) on my feet. So we had to decide what we wanted to do.

Ian was having trouble of his own.

When we went up the Watchman Trail, Ian wore his Vibrams. He generally prefers to go barefoot, but his job requires full military boots, so that makes his feet soft and generally unsuitable for long barefoot hikes.

Looking Up Zion Canyon

When we went up to Observation Point (with me in my starring role as “The Blue Monk”), he wore his military boots because of the distance.

The Unconformity

But he noticed one of the problems with boots.

He’d been having trouble with one of his knees, and the boots just exacerbated that. They allowed him to overdo things without realizing it.

So, when we went up Huber Wash, he was back to the Vibrams, and also used hiking poles (as you can see in this picture).

Vibrams in Huber Wash

(He also happens to be holding my hiking stick for me to take the picture.)

But I’m sure you noticed that he was barefoot on the Angel’s Landing hike.

Heading Back Down

He started out with the Vibrams, but his knee was still bothering him. So he decided to take them off and see how things went barefoot.

They went perfectly. The sandstone rocks were an ideal barefooting surface (not too many rough spots). But his bare feet also gave him feedback directly from his soles that the Vibrams were incapable of. That meant that he was able to consistently place his feet in a way that did not hurt his knee.

That’s what bare feet do.

I mentioned in yesterday’s entry about how crowded the trail was (Zion National Superhighway) and that a lot of people commented on our bare feet. It really was good exposure for lots of people to see just what bare feet can easily do. We got lots of comments and we told a lot of people just how well they worked. A few were even tempted to join us (but, unfortunately, so many are tempted but in the end back out).

However, the highlight of the hike happened as we were heading down, right after the picture above.

We met this couple that was coming up!

They were also doing the hike barefoot.

We had a nice little chat exchanging observations on how well bare feet worked, and then we went our separate ways.

But it is nice to know that others not only “get it”, they “get it” and follow through.