Vegan Hiking Clothing Part 1 - Shoes

I wish that I had a great definitive solution to the vegan and socially conscious footwear dilemma. Those of us trying to live humbly and consciously can eat from local farms, buy organic clothing that is locally/fairly made and even build our houses from local resources such as mud, straw and sustainably harvested timber - but when it comes time to buy new shoes, good luck. If you are reading this because you are interested in long distance hiking you will probably have to compromise your veganity and/or social righteousness for the sake of your feet.

Perhaps if you have a personal cobbler that will stitch up 4 pair of organic hemp shoes with sustainably harvested cork insoles and recycled tire outer-soles you will be set. For the rest of us there are some pretty good options if we are willing to make a few compromises. The great debate sort of centers around the question of whether leather, usually a byproduct of the meat industry, is really any worse than petroleum derived synthetic leathers. Since this is a vegan blog, we'll just assume that most readers will side that synthetic is better, even if only slightly so.

Athletic shoe companies seem to be finding it cheaper to make shoes from synthetic materials - additionally, some of the synthetic materials are now engineered to outperform and be more durable than leather. In fact, with the exception of Nike, I think that essentially all athletic shoe companies offer styles of shoes made from all human-made materials. Some companies even make shoes explicitly labeled vegetarian or vegan such as Garmont's Vegan Hiker. Although not as heavy as a mountaineering boot, this is still a fairly rugged boot to take on a thru-hike.

This raises the need for a small discussion on thru-hiker footwear. Ray Jardine makes a fairly good argument for hiking in running shoes in his books. Unless you are planning to carry an 80 pound pack or need to front point in your crampons, I highly recommend that all hikers consider running shoes as standard hiking footwear. Consider these previously held beliefs...
1. We need boots to support our ankles: Our ankles are designed to keep us stable. Ultralite hiking greatly reduces our packweight so that we no longer are overburdened by extra weight that our ankles can't support. The more we wear boots, the more we weaken our ankles.
2. Boots last longer: Boot soles don't tend to last much longer than those of running shoes. Which is easier while on the trail... have a new pair of shoes sent to you? or try to get your one pair of boots resoled? New shoes.
3. Boots protect our feet and have better traction. This may be technically true, but they also make our feet so clumbsy that they bang into more stuff anyway. Most thru-hikers survive just fine in their running shoes. I have summited a number of peaks, including Whitney, Shasta and the 3 Sisters in trail running shoes and never wish I had something heavier.

The primary advantage of running shoes over traditional boots is that they are much lighter. Your feet are being lifted perhaps 1000 times each per mile. Hiking with lighter shoes makes a significant difference. Additionally, running shoes breath better than boots. As a hiker, our feet become our most important asset. A critical part of keeping our feet healthy is keeping them cool and dry. Good ventilation helps to reduce swelling and moisture that leads to odors, fungi and blisters. The best way I found to protect my feet was to stop every 2-3 hours for a 15 min. break where I would take off my shoes, pull out the insoles and air everything out.

So, back to the shoes.

There are many resources on the web for vegan shoes. A quick google search will turn up hundreds. I think that Zappos.com is a nice place to start because they have a vegetarian shoe section. In this section you will see that nearly all of the running, trail running, and hiking shoe companies are represented in the vegetarian section: Asolo, Montrail, Vasque, New Balance, North Face, New Balance, Adidas, etc.

What I haven't mentioned so far is that while all of these shoes may not be made of leather, they all contain glues which may or may not contain animal products. Many glues use casein, other animal proteins, or even ground bones and hooves. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who has had any luck finding out which shoes use which type of glue. New Balance tends to issue blanket statements that they get their glues from different sources and cannot guarantee whether or not a particular shoe has animal products in the glue.

With that said, I believe that New Balance is a very good option for hiking shoes. What I like about them is that they assemble many of their shoes in the U.S.A. and their shoes come in 4 different widths to accommodate a variety of foot shapes. This is particularly nice, because as thru-hikers know, your foot will tend to swell at least 1/2 a shoe size from its regular size. Most of this swelling makes the foot wider rather than longer. The whole "Made in the USA" thing is a little confusing. New Balance claims that certain materials cannot be acquired in the USA, therefore none of their shoes are 100% made in the USA. If a shoe bears the "Made in the USA" logo, that means that more than 70% of the shoes value was made in the USA. Although not perfect, there really aren't other companies that even offer 70%.

When I hiked the PCT, I wore New Balance 906's that are no longer made. I got about 700 miles per pair. That was fairly long relative to other hikers. I observed that hikers usually got from 400-800 miles per pair of shoes. During the High Sierra/John Muir Trail section of the PCT I switched from my NB's to a pair of Montrail Hurricane Ridge's. Although the Montrails seemed like some serious mountain shoes with a partially plastic sole and GoreTex XLR throughout, they turned out to be the worst shoes I've ever owned. They have plastic pieces on the side that focus all of the stress in the shoe to a thin piece of fabric near the ball of your foot. Both shoes had gaping holes within 60-70 miles of use. Fortunately REI reluctantly replaced them. Since hiking the PCT, I've switched to a pair of Montrail Mountain Mist's and a pair of Vasque trail running shoes (Blur, I think). These shoes are great. I don't wear GoreTex shoes, though, unless I know I'm going to spend the day on snow. Asolo shoes always seem pretty hard core, but I don't have any personal experience with them.

I think that the most important part of selecting shoes for a thru-hike is making sure that they fit your feet. Every brand of running shoe fits slightly different, so it is good to try a number of shoes to see which fits your feet best. Some running shoe retailers have tread mills and trained fitting specialists that can analyze your foot and gate and recommend the optimal shoe for you. I don't recommend trying shoes on at a local retailer and buying them online. I think that it is only fair to at least buy the first pair from the local retailer that offered the service of letting you try it on. Once you have a pair of shoes that you have settled on, make sure to break them in. The great thing about running shoes is that it doesn't take much to actually break them in, but the important part is that you have spent some time on the trail actually testing the comfort and support of the shoes that you have chosen.

And don't forget to shake your shoes out in the morning!!!