One of the principals of the Eastern Massachusetts barefoot hiking
Meetup group called
an outing
for a Saturday in mid May and then had to cancel it, having perhaps overdone
it a bit at an event the previous weekend.
So I decided to get my ass out of the house and go do the hike anyway,
especially since I'd also poked some of the local
Friends
park support organization and invited/encouraged them to join us --
shod or not as they chose.
All concerned were amply warned that it was an "advanced" level hike,
with lots of rough terrain and elevation change (well, on the Boston-metro
scale, which isn't saying that much).
Even if nobody else was going to go after the cancellation, *I* wanted
the challenge, and figured I could just shortcut the proposed loop via
any number of alternate routes if I needed to wimp out early.
I arrived at the parking lot before the proposed meeting time, hung out for maybe half an hour until a healthy margin past 9am, and after it was clear that nobody else was about to show up, simply set off up the hill on Red Dot. |
After getting back to the tower and taking the obligatory gaze around the vista from the top, I detoured over to the weather station to see the radar progress of the oncoming unseasonably "anomalous" nor-easter that was headed our way that day. It was a slow front, still roiling along somewhere in Connecticut, and despite the overcast the air here was still dry enough to afford a very clear view to the horizon. I think one of the station's staffers recognized me from a prior visit with a friend a few months back and said hello; they've got no problem with feet over there and had even expressed some fairly earnest curiosity about our choice of hiking footwear. |
*So* many people just don't innately understand this, because the
blind paranoia from what they've been told since childhood prevents
them from actually thinking about it logically.
Part of handling the rough stuff is to never *scuff along* in any of it,
but come straight down on it and let the body respond naturally by
shifting weight off any points that are starting to take undue load.
This process happens instantaneously in a normal foot driven by a normal
brain, generally long before a puncture would actually occur, and our society
has chosen to forget how amazing that reflexive process is for us.
Of course no foot, human or animal, is proof against everything. A few scrapes along the sides or thinner-skinned arches can be a minor annoyance once in a while, but aren't going to ruin the day. Intentionally-injurious organics such as thorns still present a problem, and in my pack was the backup pair of china-flats to use as a tool to handle such things if I needed it. I've had my obligatory run-ins with prickly pear and other Western succulents; it's not fun. But most circumstances of hiking don't require any particular level of insensitive stomping to navigate competently, especially on these trails, and for me the agility benefits and total sensory experience far outweigh the perceived risks. None of the comments/questions I got that day were derogatory -- the fact that I was out there mixin' it up in the woods with everyone else and hauling ass in the process seemed to garner little other than admiration and respect, even if with a slight hint of "he's a crazy-man!" attached. The word "brave" was heard quite a few times that morning. I clearly impressed a few people who seemed likely to be the type to begin experimenting on their own, which is about all I'd hope for in terms of external influence. All in a day's work. And I didn't have to wrinkle my nose taking off stinky shoes and socks after getting back to the car; I just rinsed the DEET off when I got home. |
This was also great pre-training. Two weeks after this, a small group of us went and did Monadnock up in New Hampshire, which was a much bigger deal, and confidently shoeless the entire way. It was really awesome. |
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