On 27 Mar 2005 at 18:57, Keith Wrage wrote: > Wondering what people have found for a good portage shoe. I'm looking > for the 'perfect' shoe for canoeing in the BWCAW and Quetico How rough are the portages in this area and how much load do you carry? There's a difference between carrying all your gear and the canoe in one go and saving your body and doing several portages with a some gear or only the canoe on each "lap". > opinion the perfect portage shoe/boot should: - have good ankle > support to prevent injuries on portage trail (mid or high top) I'm not enthusiastic about high top footgear for ankle support. In general, an ankle bandage with a low top will provide better support than an arbitrarily made high top. Some high top footwear will protect from abrasion etc, but not really protect the joint from strain. You'd have to get into some pretty heavy-duty footwear to get serious ankle protection. > An all nylon, hightop running shoe would seem to be perfect! Would > seem that leather wouldn't dry very fast. Almost wondering if the old > canvas Converse hightops might not be a good choice!! :o) Based on my above comments, I'd say no. In fact, you might be better off with an ankle support that you can slip on (Tensor) and a really good low hiking shoe - the fancier-than-a-running-shoe kind from a name brand. A good outer sole will prevent you from slipping and rotating and that will be safer than a poorer sole with a high top. I wouldn't expect that kind of performance from a shoe made for a basketball court - they only have to deal with flat wood floors. A cross-country running shoe would be better than a regular running shoe, but there's little $ saving over a decent hiking shoe. You'll improve your odds by keeping the weight down - like two loads or more for gear and one for canoe. This is fine for shorter portages, but time consuming for longer ones. > I saw some Quetico portage shoes (hightop) by Chota (link below). They look pretty decent from the photo. You'd have to inspect them in person to be sure. There's a lot to be said for a shoe that's made for wet conditions - slipping on rock can end a canoe trip fast. > recall someone finding an inexpensive place to buy Chota brand boots > in Canada?? MEC sells a clone of the basic Chota mukluk, but that's the low end of the Chota line. They don't have anything that matches the top end Chota paddling footwear. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Mar 27 2005 - 21:51:09 PST
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