Wide Width Hiking Shoes - Merrell Moab Ventilators

When backpacking or hiking, your footwear is obviously your most important piece of gear bar none and the styles, brands and opinions out there are truly daunting when looking for what best fits your preferences and needs.

Oldschool thinking and debates

1) high top vs. low top
2) waterproof (GTX) vs. non waterproof

 Some say, and I believe it to be true - that the oldschool thinking of super heavy all leather hiking boots is a thing made up by the shoe manufacturers to make you buy more expensive boots.  I have been transitioning from heavier footwear to lighter over time.  The ultralight thinking nowadays says that the lighter the shoe, the less tiring you will be at the end of the day and super heavy boots do not give much (if any) advantage.  I have strong ankles and it is said that mid high boots don't even give any ankle support - at best they just keep pebbles out of your shoes.
Same with the waterproof (or 'breathable' GTX) liners.  My feet sweat alot even when cold.  The waterproof/breathable liners just make my feet wet from sweating.  Why fight it?  That, and as anyone that has had footwear with liners knows, the liners rarely stay waterproof with any decent mileage on them.  I have changed my thinking on this as well, and am opting for some well-ventilated shoes.  The other thing is water crossings.  Some people prefer to change footwear to sandals or the like while crossing then switch back on the other side, but this is very time consuming.  A liner shoe will just trap all that water and give no chance of draining.  Well vented shoes will just drain out.  I spent some time researching what through hikers have to say about this and many agree that you just plow through the crossings with your hiking shoes and if they have provisions for draining, your shoes will be mostly dry at the end of the day.  In any case you should switch to dry socks and alternate footwear around camp.  In the morning if need be, put your damp socks and shoes on again and hit the trail.

Wide Feet

I never really considered my feet to be wide width in the past, just on the large side of regular width.  I've never had to purposely buy wide width shoes for the last forty some years.  But I have had some issues while hiking/backpacking, namely that my small toe gets pushed over my second smallest toe with most hiking shoes, creating a blister/callus.  I didn't really think this had to do with the width of the shoe, just something that happened and I had to deal with it.  But my feet are slightly on the wide side I have come to realize.  I have been cycling through a bunch of hiking boots and none seem to fit just quite right.  Yet another issue I have is I seem to have low volume feet.  This means in many brands of footwear me feet slop around and/or I have to cinch the laces until the two sides are almost toughing for my feet to feel secure.
The truth is different brands and models of hiking footwear are made to different widths.  And frequently as well, as well as strangely I find, especially for something as paramount as fit for hiking, each model of footwear frequently does not even come in a selection widths, many just in a regular width...  which again means something different to different brands.
If you search for wide hiking footwear you actually don't get much on this topic.  I've gone through though a bunch of different footwear and hopefully have found something that I love in my new Merrell Moab Ventilator wide width shoes.

Wide hiking shoes...  there's not as many manufactures for this as you'd think.  Keen in regular width have a good width toebox, but the models I have had in the past leave some things to be desired on the durability side, as well as being able to cinch tightly and feel secure/no rubbing on downhills.  Salomon - I like their designs, light weight and construction, but they are just too narrow and no wide widths.  North Face - again too narrow. Lowa - I went through two sets of Lowa renegades in the past when they only came in one width, and I loved them, but they were too heavy, and also too narrow.  Their designs nowadays seem to heavy across the board.

So I settled on the wide Merrell Moab Ventilator wide version low cut.  These are tried and true, have been on the market a while and there's some people that absolutely love them.  I've also had Merrells in the past and they were definitely too narrow.  But these wide versions feel right, at least new.  Certainly not ultra wide, but just about right for my feet, and also cinch tight without reefing on the laces.  I've heard Asolo and New Balance also make some wider width shoes.

I'm looking forward to testing these out in the Appalachians as well as trekking in Iceland in the next couple months and hope they will fit the bill for what I want in some footwear.  They are still a tad on the heavier side with beefy soles and reinforcement...  possibly in the future, I will transition even lighter to trail shoes but these look great for now.

Update:  I just got back from a rugged backpacking trip 42km over Algonquin Peak and Mount Marcy, and these are by far the best boots for my feet yet.  They dry fast and the treads are very grippy - great on exposed rock surfaces and the lugs are deep enough to maintain stability in soft mud.  I did switch out the footbeds with SOLE response footbeds which I highly recommend over any stock footbeds.

Here's a good read on why to ditch your boots:
http://www.cleverhiker.com/blog/ditch-boots

Paddling and Photography – how to make electronics and backcountry paddling trips mix

    I'm into landscape and nature photography and take many photos during my backcountry paddling trips, both for the beauty of the landscape or the moment itself, and also as sort of a photo journal for the trip and what the area looks like.    For the on the water shots, I use my trusty Panasonic TS2 waterproof tough camera.  Back about 5 years ago, I used to go through 2 or 3 of these ultracompact cameras a season as I kept getting them wet in one way or another, and waterproof cameras didn’t exist at the time.  I kept it in an otterbox strapped to my kayak deck.  Nowadays it’s all good with the ubiquitous waterproof tough camera.

      The photos that come out of the Panasonic camera are great for on the water, but I do prefer to have my SLR on land, for the depth of field, quality, resolution and low light performance it offers.  But, bringing something that costs that much with you where there’s water all about, and the possibility of getting all your gear soaked is very high can send shivers down some photographers spines.  I looked around at all of the options available for waterproof containers for my camera and I found a great solution with the Lowepro Dryzone 200.

     Firstly, I like to have my SLR accessible during shore stops, lunch, portages, etc.  when on paddling trips so burying it in a drybag in a dry pack doesn’t work for me, not to mention, there is not much protection against crushing, rubbing, etc.  I also wouldn’t want to just strap a typical drybag to the deck or put it in the bottom of a canoe, as I don’t trust 100% any dry bag to be sealed properly.  I could have also used an otterbox, but they are very bulky, square, and don’t have any proper straps for when I need to portage.

      I bought a LoweproDryzone 200 backpack about 5 years ago – it was the only type of purpose built water protection for cameras that is also carry friendly at the time, and still is, as far as I can tell.  It consists of an inner pod, what they call a drypod, which is essentially a PVC watertight casing with a drysuit zipper from a german company named tizip. The bag  comes with a variety of Velcro dividers you can configure any way you would like to, so you can separate lenses, filters, cameras and accessories.  It’s big enough to carry my D600 with 28-300 lens attached, and maybe one or even two more medium/large SLR lens would fit in it as well.  The drypod is attached to a nylon outer backpack shell with loops around the case and some wire.  But, I have since taken the drypod out of the backpack shell and just use the case itself.  The reason why I did that was the shell made it harder to access the contents as I would have to undo another nylon clip in addition to opening up the zipper, the shell is also heavy and soaks up water making it wet all the time and even heavier, and the shell does add some extra non-protected storage, but not all that much, for all the downsides it has.  The shell itself weighs 3 pounds, seriously.  And that is when it's dry.  There's no use for it for my needs.

  The full Dryzone 200.  I just ditched the outer nylon shell and use the inner drypod bag.

     When kayaking, I thread some bungees directly through the loops around the drypod base and attach it to my deck lines on the rear of my kayak.  It is easily attached this way, and is awesomely accessible when I get out of my kayak.  When canoeing, I just place the drypod on the bottom of the cane in front of me…  once in a while I will take it out of the case for some photos while on the water, but not very often.  I generally use it for all of my electronics while on a trip – batteries, phone, filters, etc, and sometimes even put my toiletries kit or a book in there for dryness and ease of access.

     The one downside of using just the drypod itself is the lack of straps for portaging.  I have used the bungies themselves many times to act as backpack straps, but it isn’t quite ideal, although it is manageable.  My last rip, I didn’t have the bungie configuration the best configuration, and I did pull one of the attachment loops off of the base.  Basically the glue gave way on the attachment loop itself, it didn’t tear a hole in the outside.  I am going to look into getting some aftermarket PVC attachment points and some glue to mount some attachments for just some simple backpack straps to make this this ideal for my needs as a paddling drypod for my SLR.

     As for keeping water out itself, it is rated for IPX7 which means it is submersible.  It comes with a small tube of silicone grease to keep the Tizipzipper lubricated and sealed properly, as is used with drysuit zippers.  I have done rolls in my kayak with it, and there is no issue.  There is one caveat though.  You must make sure you do the zipper all the way up.  One trip to the French River I was lining my kayak down some rapids and the kayak flipped over, putting the drypod in the water.  I wasn’t concerned at all about the water and took my time righting the kayak.  Then I realized I hadn’t done the zipper up all the way, it was about 2 inches open, and there was some water in my bag.  The water  did mess up the electronics inside the Nikon D300 that I had at the time.  Luckily I was able to recover $700 by selling it as a water damaged item on eBay at the time.  So now, I make sure double check the zipper before putting in with the bag.

     The Dryzone 200 inner drypod is very functional and I think it is the most useful product out there to take your SLR camera gear on backcountry paddling trips.  The outer backpack shell is somewhat useful, but I prefer to use the drypod without the outer shell.  My only complaint is it is very pricey for what it is.  I wish that Lowepro would make a different version to sell of this – just the inner drypod with just two shoulder straps attached directly to it, without the outer shell  to reduce the price.

LoweproDryzone 200

Tizip