2020 The Great North Walk
Altra Olympus 3.5 Mens Shoes
One of the biggest decisions for me when planning a long distance hike is the choice of footwear. Out of all equipment choices, footwear has the greatest impact on your success. Get it wrong and you will be cursing the whole trip. Get it right and you won’t give your feet another thought.
My choice of footwear was originally based around hiking the Australian Alps Walking Track where my criteria was for a trail running shoe that would cope with full length gaiters, which meant the sole needed to accommodate the gaiters position-wise and comfort-wise; easier said than done. I had identified two options based on gaiter use (I expected to see snakes, and potentially lots of them, on almost a daily basis). My choice was made but size 15 US was not available for sale, anywhere. I have long since learnt the footwear manufacturing cycle means that trying to source my size around the last quarter of each year is a nightmare.
Now that I’m doing the Great North Walk I still expect to see snakes but not to the same extent so I won’t be wearing gaiters. This has allowed me to use a shoe I love, the Altra Olympus 3.5 which isn’t a great option for wearing with gaiters but for me is s purely comfortable shoe. Because I love this shoe I had a brand new pair sitting in my cupboard ready to use ‘just in case’. The Altra Olympus 4.0 has been released and Gill has done a review of the women’s version but again I can’t source my size, as hard as I have tried.
One of the biggest decisions for me when planning a long distance hike is the choice of footwear. Out of all equipment choices, footwear has the greatest impact on your success. Get it wrong and you will be cursing the whole trip. Get it right and you won’t give your feet another thought. My choice […]