Tag: hiking

Post #2135: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

 

I have recently completed three stiff mountain day-hikes.  Hikes where I was worn out, and then some, after just a few hours of hiking.

On my last hike I met a 74-year-old guy who was doing real backpacking.  That is, days-at-a-stretch, carrying-kit-and-caboodle mountain hiking.

I handed him an apple, so I know he wasn’t imaginary.  And it got me to thinking: If he can can do it, can’t I?

Answer:  Nope.  There’s no way I can go backpacking.  Not due to the weight of the pack, but because my joints can’t recover fast enough from the pounding.  I need days (plural) of recovery time after a mountain day-hike.

There’s no way I could do this two days in a row. Which, practically speaking, rules out backpacking.

Continue reading Post #2135: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

Post #2134: Hollow Brook Falls/Sam Moore Shelter hike.

 

The first part of this hike is what everyone thinks a walk in the eastern woods should look like.  After a brief climb on some stone stairs, you gradually arrive at a long section of mostly-level dirt trail.  As shown  left.

The trail head is on a rarely-used gravel road.  On the trail, the only man-made noises were from the occasional jet flying overhead, and one far-off dog.

By contrast, the woods were full of birds.  This ends up as a hike, on a good trail, out of earshot of roads, listening to songbirds and woodpeckers.

The side-trail to the waterfall on Hollow Brook is a hoot.  But perhaps not appropriate for small children.  It ends at the waterfall pictured above.

The trail gets rockier and steeper as you travel further north.  Pick your turnaround point as you see fit.

 

Continue reading Post #2134: Hollow Brook Falls/Sam Moore Shelter hike.

Post #2133: Clickety-clack. Trekking poles are loud. A partial fix is … ineffective.

 

On the East Coast, you do not need to wear a bear bell.  Aluminum trekking poles — if applied with due diligence — will make all the noise you need to alert the wildlife.

And everyone else.

Seriously, trekking pole noise is an issue that deserves to be … heard.

This post is my brief inquiry into trekking pole noise.  And what I can do about it.

Edit, the next day:  I took my modified trekking poles (below) on a hike, and the fix shown below does essentially nothing to suppress the noise these poles make.  

The act of jamming the pole tip down onto the rock — basically, using these poles — causes the aluminum to sound.  Worse, accidentally slapping the hard plastic tip of the pole, sideways, into the rock, produces a loud rackety-bang noise out of the aluminum pole.

As of now, I’m guessing that the only effective way to quiet down these noisy aluminum trekking poles is to cover the carbide tips with rubber tips. 

I may have to rethink my aversion to rubber crutch tips on trekking poles.

To cut to the …

I count at least three distinct, common trekking pole noises.

First, there’s the ringing slap of the aluminum pole against rock.  What I would call the bangety-bang noise.  This isn’t something you do intentionally, it’s just the side of the pole accidentally banging against the rock as you put the pole down, over and over again, in time to your walking.

Second, there’s the potential for the inner workings of the pole to rattle, make boinging-boing noises, and similar, as most trekking poles are “spring loaded” to minimize shock to your hands as you use them.

My poles don’t have this problem.  But some of them jangle as they are used.

Finally, there is the noise of the carbide pole tip biting into the rock surface.  I’ll go into it at length below, but suffice it to say, they put carbide tips on these for a good reason.  They are integral to these functioning well on rock, in all weather.

I don’t think I can get rid of that noise.

So, of what I count as the three main sources of noise, the only one relevant to me, that I think I can do something about, is the ringing bang of the bare aluminum pole against rocks.

I’m trying the above, to minimize that.  If for no other reason than “Of course I have a dead bicycle inner tube hanging up in my garage.  Doesn’t everyone?”

Anyway, this is surely an idiot-proof fix.  We’ll see if it stops the banging, on my next hike.

Trekking pole noise, a more sensitive issue for hunters than hikers.

On line, you see sporadic mentions of trekking pole noise, as an annoyance on the trail.

On my most recent hike, I heard a bit of grumbling from one hiker.  Not direct at me, but at a guy who had jangled up the trail some tens of minutes earlier.

And my fellow hiker had a point.  When a trekking pole user is approaching along the trail, you can typically hear the clackety-clack, and sometimes the jingle-jangle, from quite a ways off.

But what to do about that?  As a trekking poles user, I mean.

Logically enough, the best discussions of trekking pole noise that I stumbled across were in the sportsman (hunting/fishing) community.  Trekking pole noise is a drawback when stalking prey, so it receives full and serious attention in that market sector.

From discussion among hunters, I learned that

  • sloppy users make more noise than those who are more careful,
  • and some brands of poles are noisier than others,
  • carbon fiber poles are quieter than aluminum.

And, finally, I ran across this bicycle-inner-tube fix, in those sportsmen’s discussions.

It was a goldilocks moment.  Soft plastic — pool noodle, pipe insulation — couldn’t handle the abrasion of the rocks.  Hard plastic — like vinyl tubing, rubber garden hose, or similar — would take some ingenuity to attach, and have it stay attached.

But inner tube material seemed just about right.  Very tough, for sure.  Prevents metal-to-rock contact.  And big enough to allow the pole to be fully collapsed, even with this inner-tube sleeve attached.

Why I’m (probably) not going to use rubber crutch tips.

Source:  https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/mohs-hardness-scale.htm

A separate part of trekking pole noise is the impact of the carbide tips on rock.

Not only does the impact of carbide tip on rock make noise, it marks the rock.    This draws some criticism of trekking poles, in some heavily-hiked areas, because over time the rocks become visibly scarred.

But carbide trekking sticks tips scar the rock by design.  Tungsten carbide is harder than any common rock, by a wide margin.  On Moh’s scale, it’s a 9+, where quartz (about the hardest rock around here) is 7 on the Moh’s scale.  That carbide tip “bites into” the rock underneath it when you apply weight.  That keeps the tip from slipping under adverse conditions (e.g., wet and muddy).

I have rubber crutch tips to fit over the carbide tips on my old, cheap trekking sticks.  I can see that a) I used them, b) I took them off, and c) they have some mud on them.

My take on that is that the rubber tips aren’t much good, under the circumstances where I rely on trekking sticks.  That is, going downhill, putting a lot of weight on the sticks to take stress off my knee joints.  In that situation, if the tip skids on the rocks, the results could be very bad indeed.

And so, from the look of it, and as best I can recall, when I last used these — about seven years ago — I tried the rubber crutch tips and found them to be unreliable for rocky trail descents in adverse (muddy/wet) conditions.

They’ll slip, in situations where the carbide tip — with its minuscule surface area in contact with the rock, grinding into the rock — will not.

I may try some upgraded rubber tips, to see if that makes any difference.  Or, maybe, see if I can find ones that are adequate in dry conditions, for me, leaning on them as I descend rocky trails.

Plus, as a day hiker and retiree, if it looks like rain, I ain’t going hiking.  So maybe I don’t need much in the way of muddy/wet performance.  (Or, when I don’t, maybe I can get by with rubber tips.)

Conclusion.

I’ve done the simple fix, for one component of trekking stick noise.

Nothing to do but try it out on the next hike and see whether it makes a difference or not.

Post #2132: Bears Den Overlook/Sam Moore Shelter hike.

 

This is a good day hike if you’re looking for a workout.  That’s the consensus of opinion on hiking upward.

Otherwise, there’s nothing special to recommend it.  You hike over some ridges and through some hollows, to an Appalachian Trail shelter in the middle of the woods, next to a creek.  And you hike back.

It’s slow hiking, with abundant rocks.

Continue reading Post #2132: Bears Den Overlook/Sam Moore Shelter hike.

Post #2131: New hiking boots from Lowes.

 

Lowes.  Lowa’s.  What’s the difference.

I bought Lowa Renegade boots, from my local REI.

Addendum 5/4/2025:  After two day-hikes of 6-7 miles each, on the nearest sections of the Appalachian Trail, these boots get an A+ from my feet (zero problems) and at least a B from my joints (in reducing shock).

But the fabric has already started fraying on the boot collars.  That’s from me scuffing the ankle of one boot with the heel of the opposite boot, as I walk.  I got proactive and Barge-cemented a small leather patch on each boot collar, to take the scuffing.

I am not happy about that.  Put a happy face on it by saying that I like the boots so much, I was willing to invest a couple of leather scraps to serve as wear pads needed for my heel-scuffing gait.

In addition, the Vibram soles are much better than they looked in the store.  The semi-slick surface of the injection-molded soles has now worn to a nice matte finish.  The soles have good traction.

They’re good hiking boots. I don’t regret purchasing them.  I remain unhappy that I had to add wear patches.  Such is life.

Edit 5/9/2025:  Ten miles of rocky trails, and these patches are already showing wear.  I’m sure that the original cloth would not stand up to this much abuse.

The story so far

Thanks to yesterday’s big adventure (Raven Rocks overlook hike), I now know that I need better boots (or maybe shoes) to hike in.  And that I need to eat before I hike.

What the mountain hike lacks in average intensity, versus cardio machines at the gym, it more than makes up in duration.  By the book, this little 5.4 mile hike involves four hours of walking, plus lunchtime.  I’m sure this well-under-six-mile hike burned at least twice the calories of an hour’s CV exercise at the gym. 

But that means I needed to have twice the readily-available stored energy, on tap.  Turns out, I didn’t.  I don’t pack that much glycogen.  And, worse, I can’t burn fat fast enough to keep up with the demands of hiking.  That’s how I interpret that last hike.  I ran out of sugar and glycogen, and I’m too low-power as a fat burner, for hiking. 

A degree of “brain fog” of fatigue ensued.  Not terrible, but not good.  Double plus ungood if you’re a geezer hiking a steep rocky trail.  Do I need to wear a helmet when I hike?

The obvious fix for running out of energy on the hike is to eat breakfast first. Duh.  Eat a high-starch breakfast, then drive an hour to the trail head.  Somewhere in the first couple of hours of hiking, presumably, those carbs will be available as sugars to burn. A few packs of ramen would provide an easy test.

Then there’s the boots.

About a boot.  I bought boots.

Lowa Renegade boots.  And I know they’re cool because they’ve got speed laces.  And because they’re pronounced re-ne-GAh-da.  Or should be.

For the Raven Rocks hike, I made do with some work boots and two pairs of socks.  That worked.  The stiff soles and leather uppers of my old Walmart/Brahma work boots kept the soles of my feet from being beaten up by the rocks.  For which I am grateful.

Those work boots failed on the downhills.  No shame in that, and not unexpected.  The “work boot” design isn’t made to prevent that downhill slide, within the boot, that results in your toes getting crammed into the end of the boot, on the downhills.  Making the boot rigid/close-fitting enough to stop your foot’s downhill slide within the boot would make the boot uncomfortable as a work boot.

I need something made for hiking.  If nothing else, I’m old, and need all the help I can get.  Stiff soles are required, else the edges of the rocks beat up the soles of your feet.  Ankle support (high tops) are a good idea if you’re stepping around fist-sized rocks a lot.  Finally, I need something that passes the “toes remain comfy on downhills” test.

The more I looked, the higher up the market I went.  For one thing, a lot of low-end hiking boots are more … hiking-style boots.  They aren’t typically bought to be used for mountain hiking.  Which suggests to me that they aren’t typically made to do mountain hiking well.

Weirdly, that crossover at the low end — people using hiking-look boots, as general-purpose boots — occurs in part because, for reasons I cannot fathom, this category of footwear is known as “waterproof hiking boots”.  Waterproof is, as far as I can tell, not optional, and absolutely integral to the category of footwear I wanted.  You want hiking boots, of the type I’m after, you’re getting waterproof hiking boots.

Apparently a lot of people buy them not as hiking boots, but as a style of waterproof boots.  A lot of commenters actively disliked the features — e.g., stiffness — that made them hiking boots.  And so, at the low end of the market, you have a lot of what I’d call hiking-style boots, whose construction and fit is more like … eh, work boots.  And if the boots fail to fit and act like work boots, the commenters call them out for it.  (And for failure of the waterproofing.)

Long story short, after a lengthy shopping expedition, first on-line, then at my local DSW, I finally ended up at REI on a Saturday afternoon.  And I bought the best of what they had on the shelf.   Which is a story in and of itself.

I paid about what you’d think, buying top-shelf boots from REI.  But, arguably, less than the cost of a broken ankle.

What I ended up with was a pricey thin-but-stiff leather boot with thick Vibram sole, from Lowa.  Which to my surprise, is a German-made boot, explaining both the high cost and the excellent everything else.

So it’s a German-designed and assembled boot, incorporating American fabric (Gore-Tex), and Italian soles (Vitale Bramini?).  (Although, these injection-molded Vibram soles are nothing like traditional real (rubber) Vibram soles.)

Das boot is a real-life lesson for the Age of Tariffs and supply chains.

At any rate, these are right for the task.  Stiff sole.  Stiff ankle support.  Good toe room.  Vibram sole. And speed laces.

On the downside, aside from cost:  They have leather uppers, which I did not want.  I’d prefer more “sneaker-like” construction.  But thin leather is not a terrible choice given that these are, after all, boots.

And they are disposables, which I also did not want in a high-end boot.  Just like a pair of sneakers, they cannot be resoled.  I’m guessing that at my age, this is unlikely to be a problem.

Conclusions

Cheap boots are false economy.  But sometimes cheap boots will do.  And the availability of better boots does not give you carte blanche.

That said, at the end of the day, I bought the best hiking boots I could find locally.  Locally, so I could try them on first.  And the best I could find, not because I set out to do that.  But because, somewhere along the line, after looking at what was for offer, that started to make sense.

My other take-away is that REI, here in NoVA, is a fundamentally weird place.  Doubly so on a spring Saturday.  A whole lotta shopping goin’ on.  An eclectic mix of staff.

They say these German-made hiking boots should last 1000 miles.  Or maybe it’s kilometers.

Either way, I’d like to put that to the test.  Otherwise I’m just another doofus in expensive boots.

Starting just as soon as I heal up from the last hike.

Addendum:  Tuning the lacing on a stroll downtown.

I strolled to Walgreens, to get sunscreen.  Maybe two miles round-trip, on the sidewalks.

The boots did fine.  I did fine.  It was fine.

The leather on these is stiff enough that I assume they require some sort of break-in period.  People may sometimes tell you otherwise, but my experience says that it takes a while for leather boots and feet to get to know one another.    I’m doing that by wearing them around, a bit at a time, and eschewing (e.g.) oils (or even water) to speed the break-in.  I’m in no particular hurry.

To my surprise, these boots don’t have to fit tightly around the foot, in order to pass the downhill no-toe-cram test.  Instead, you can set up the lacing to be (comfortably) relaxed around the foot, as long as the ankle portion of the lacing is pulled tight. 

It’s designed this way.  The ankle portion of the lacing is the speed laces.  Tighten them up, leaving the lacing relatively loose on the foot, and the boot effectively grabs you by the ankle.  Firmly, but gently.  And that keeps your foot from sliding forward in your shoe, on (modest, so far) downhills.

The upshot is that a) the boots pass the downhill test so far, and b) my feet feel better loosely-laced.  But that all works out, because the boot is designed to hold two different tensions, on those two different parts of the lacing.

Comfortable hiking boot?  That’s kind of a foreign concept to me, but, these are foreign boots.

I guess it all works out.