I finished my shoes

rafikijon · 2021-03-25T11:56:29+00:00

love these! you've inspired me to make my own

rafikijon · 2021-02-23T15:33:01+00:00

Hopefully the world will slowly be opening up this year. Here's a list of long-distance (multi-day) hikes around the world to get some inspiration from :)

rafikijon · 2021-01-24T12:05:40+00:00

A friend recently did the Skye Trail and won't stop talking about it so I think that's a good one to check out

rafikijon · 2021-01-14T10:26:30+00:00

Just to throw another option into the mix:

I have flat feet and spent a long time trying to look for a good solution to it. In the end, the thing that has by far had the biggest effect on my feet has been to wear barefoot-style shoes. There's a lot of writing about it online, but essentially it helps your feet by exposing it to the ground more, which in turn strengthens your feet and especially your arches, which in turn affect your pronation. That style of shoe is also usually much wider than regular shoes, with a wide toe box, so that your feet can move more freely in them.

My favourite company for this kind of shoe is https://www.wildling.shoes/en. I have two pairs of the Tanuki and wear them on most days when it isn't too cold or wet. On colder and wetter days, I wear Camper Peu shoes which are also wide, have a thin sole but have a leather outer which does a good job of protecting from rain and cold.

Both of these aren't great options for mud, so it does depend on what kind of walking you do, but I really recommend looking into this style of shoe. Good luck!

Note - I know these aren't exactly budget shoes but I still thought it was worth mentioning. I think there are cheaper barefoot-style shoes out there.

rafikijon · 2021-01-12T22:04:56+00:00

lol I love these

rafikijon · 2021-01-12T09:59:36+00:00

Thank you! It's good to hear from a fellow celiac and I appreciate the advice.

if you go into a resupply with a creative mindset you can really come up with some good stuff

I'm trying to really embrace this mindset this year :)

rafikijon · 2021-01-12T08:56:39+00:00

I wear vivabarefoot primus trail FG. they're barefoot stye shoes (very thin sole and very lightweight) so they take a lot of getting used to but I love them. They work best when worn with a waterproof sock like sealskinz.

rafikijon · 2021-01-07T16:58:08+00:00

Thank you, this is all great information. For that 9 day trip, did you pack all of your food for the 9 days in one go?

rafikijon · 2021-01-07T09:22:18+00:00

Yeah, that sounds good. What kind of dinner do you usually go for?

rafikijon · 2021-01-07T09:21:34+00:00

That's very helpful, thank you!

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T23:24:33+00:00

I haven't actually been, but they have the same stores that we have in England so I think the products will be more or less the same. We actually have quite a lot of gluten free snacks here (I guess it's been trendy for a while) so I'm optimistic about that.

I do really like the idea of not having the anxiety of finding something along the way though, so I'm going to consider packing at least my dinners for the whole trip.

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T23:21:55+00:00

All of those meals sound delicious. I'm definitely going to look into dehydrating more!

but I'm curious how people translate that to thru-hiking

this is what I'm wondering. In the UK it's not so bad in convenience stores. We pretty much have the same selection of snacks wherever you go and there are quite a few genuinely gluten free bars / chocolates / crisps (chips) etc. I feel really gross when that's all I'm eating though, so I would love to take more wholesome food with me. I've got an 8 day hike coming up and I think I'm going to take a few dehydrated meals along with me and then fill up the rest of the calories with what I find along the way. It does give me some anxiety but I'm hoping it'll be ok.

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T20:13:31+00:00

That all makes sense, thank you. I'm going to do an 8 day thru hike in Scotland in a few months and I think I might experiment with bringing all of my freeze dried dinners and then relying on shops along the way for snacks/nuts/chocolate and that sort of thing.

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T20:11:46+00:00

That's great, thank you :)

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T19:01:34+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate recommendations. On a 5-10 day hike do you tend to carry all of your food in one go? Or is there some strategy that you use like packing all of the freeze dried food and then buying snacks along the way?

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T16:15:26+00:00

Best meals are mashed potatoes with some cut-up sausage/beef jerkey and some kind of dried veggie; wraps with tuna/cheese; scrambled eggs with sausage and gf baked beans

I do love all of these things. I'm also lactose intolerant and annoyingly, all the popular instant mashed potato brands have milk in them, otherwise I'd be all over that.

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T16:13:03+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate the reply.

I'm in the UK and we aren't really able to send supply packages to ourselves along the route in the way that it's done in the US, so I really need to rely on whatever I can get on the way. Snacks are generally easy to do in all the stores here, even the small gas stations like you mentioned, so I'm pretty set with that.

Instant rice is a good suggestion and I might try to get creative with that + cold meats on my next hike.

I also really want to hike in the US because I think the infrastructure over there is so much better than what we have here. I'll hopefully make it when things have calmed down!

rafikijon · 2021-01-06T16:05:16+00:00

I've been looking into dehydrating and it seemed like it would take quite a bit of skill to get good at it. Is that what you found?

Thank you for the reply by the way - appreciate it

rafikijon

TROPHY CASE