Anyone have good insights on their favorite multi-use footwear for packrafting & other amphibious ventures?
Recently, and friend & did a warm-weather bike/hike/mountaineering/packrafting transect of the Olympic Peninsula, WA. We found a footwear combination that worked really well for us:
Components:
- Shoes: LaSportiva Exum Ridge approach shoes.
- Socks: Smartwool mountaineering socks, neoprene socks.
- Crampons: Charlet-Moser full-size articulated strap-on crampons (I want to say 12-point; it’s slipping my mind).
Configurations:
Biking & Hiking: Shoes, wool socks.
Snow & Cold: Shoes, neoprene socks over wool socks.
Warm-Weather, Mountaineering: As above, crampons strapped onto the shoes.
Riverine & Packrafting: Shoes, neoprene socks.
Camp: Neoprene socks only (no shoes).
Comments:
These set-ups worked very well for the warm-weather trip. In spite of about 9 hours wearing crampons on snow / glaciers on our mountaineering day (crossing Mt. Olympus), our feet were - although soaking wet - never cold. Nor were our feet cold in the Hoh river, thanks to the neoprene socks. The neoprene socks were also great for wearing alone in camp, giving our feet a rest from the shoes (we were travelling 11-16 hrs/day) while providing some light insulation & protection.
The shoes were a big surprise star: LaSportiva Exum Ridge approach shoes. They worked very well. We did the entire trip in them, no blisters. The soles have a good heel tread & edges, plus a somewhat sticky rubber forefoot for rock, + sticky rubber patches on the sides of the forefoot for cracks, etc. The soles will accept LaSportiva screw-in hobnails. We used them in logjams, step-kicking in snow, rock scrambling, etc. They did well on all surfaces and aren’t very heavy (I don’t know the exact weight). At the end of the trip, we ran another 5 miles in them to retrieve our bikes, and they ran well. So… I highly recommend checking these shoes out. The only real downside to them was the perpetual fabric shoe problem: they take a long time to dry out. As far as long-term durability / lifespan, I haven’t them long enough yet to know.
Anyone else have favorites? Comments?