When my younger friends talk about how old they feel, usually at some imaginary milestone (like thirty) I often joke that I have a pair of hiking boots that are older than they are.
In truth, I’m not joking.
In 1976, at the age of 14, I walked to the Red Wing Show Store in Fallbrook Square, Canoga Park, California and bought a pair of Vasque Hikers. That was, for those who have trouble with math, 34 years ago. So if you’re under 34, my boots are older than you.
Even at 14 and 105 pounds, I wore a size 9.5. If my shoe size had paralleled my weight gain, I would now wear a size 18 shoe. Luckily, I bought size 10 so I could wear two pairs of socks, the rag-wool itch monsters that saved our skin and irritated it at the same time.
These boots took fifty miles to break in, so I wore them constantly all Spring so they’d be ready for Summer hiking. In those days, we bought moleskin by the yard, though for some reason I always avoided blisters. What a sight I must have been. Something like this (sans turtle).
These boots carried me many, many miles throughout the High Sierras, Los Padres National Forest, Anza Borrego, the high desert in Mojave, and countless other places. This is before lightweight Gore-Tex and synthetic boots; these are heavy duty. And, well, heavy. I did the old “get on the scale with and without things” trick and they came in over 5 pounds.
No wonder my quads were in such good shape.
Once I bought a pair of Vasque Sundowners back in the early 90s, my Hikers have been relegated to top-shelf-in-a-Rubbermaid status. I still used them; they became my caving boots. During the current and ongoing gear purge/reorganization, I decided to pull out every piece of gear I own to catalog it to make sure I knew what I had, so out came the old boots.
They smelled good; a little musty, with mud from the latest cave stuck in the tread of the classic Vibram sole, an odor that you can’t really describe to someone who hasn’t been in a wild cave. I decided to take a break from the sorting and took my old friends outside for a picture. They look a little shabby, but they’re still good to go, after some time at the boot spa.
So far they’ve been scrubbed and saddle-soaped and I’ve applied a good, sopping coat of Nor-V-Gen oil. In a couple of days I’ll give them another slathering of Nor-V-Gen if they look dry, and a couple days after that I’ll add a coat of Sno-Seal, and my old friends will be back in tip-top condition.
I know it doesn’t make much sense to wear them around town, but neither does driving an open-top CJ5, an original FJ or an ancient Land Rover. These old friends are being resurrected as I write this, and I’ll wear them proudly, despite the burning sensation in my quads when I go up flights of stairs.
Respectfully submitted,
Canoelover
I love stories like this. Thanks for sharing Darren.
For all we know, you stitched this pair together, Bill. 🙂
I’ll bring them up to see where they were born next Spring.