Robert wrote:
> I plan to do a bit of walking in England, rain and all. I plan to purchase a pair of good gore-tex
> shoes for this.
Firstly, many are of the opinion that gore tex is unnecessary and on the whole I'd agree. A good
pair of boots properly treated with Nikwax or similar will keep your feet dry. However, I have found
that walking in rain for days on end, when the proofing wears off the leather does get saturated
with water and your feet do get a little damp, especially as the boots get older.
My experiences with Brasher gore-tex boots have been very good, my feet have never got wet, even
when the proofing has worn off. The downside with gore-tex boots is that they are more sweaty than
normal boots in dry weather.
Ideally therefore, I'd prefer gore-tex boots for extended wet weather, normal leather boots for more
general conditions and lightweight fabric boots for dry summer walking.
> However, since I am new to this, I ask someone with experience --- does the height of the shoe
> make a big difference? I would rather buy regular low-cut shoes, but I do not know how much the
> pants cuff will keep the rain out of such shoes. Am I better off getting the mid-cut or high boot-
> cut shoes?
The main problem here IMO is not so much rain getting in, but walking through boggy ground and
crossing streams. It's very easy to step in a bog that's more than a few inches deep and suddenly
you get a boot full of water. There's a lot of boggy ground in the hills and it's often difficult if
not impossible to avoid.
Likewise, small streams are numerous and often need to be crossed. Easy enough when dry but after a
bit of rain they fill up a lot. For this reason I prefer high cut boots. For many years I used a
pair of Dutch army boots that were perhaps 8 or 9 inches high. These enabled me to walk through bogs
and across streams with impunity. Not gore-tex either, and they only cost me £12. Normal walking
boots are cut much lower, more for style than practicality in rain IMO. I'd definitely recommend
high cut boots.
As for the problem of rain getting in, this is rarely a problem, provided you wear overtrousers (and
the bottom of the overtrousers covers the top of the boots). I once got caught in heavy rain with no
waterproofs and my feet got soaked. Several times I had to take them off to pour the water out, even
though they were laced up tightly. The reason was that my trousers and the top of my socks got
soaked in the rain and it just filtered down. With overtrousers this shouldn't happen (although
there was one occasion in particularly heavy rain when it did happen).
To be sure this doesn't happen your best bet is to wear gaiters. These cover the lower leg and the
top of the boot. Great for walking through long wet grass after the rain has stopped, and are even
sufficient to save your feet getting wet from the occasional immersion in bog if you remove your
foot quickly enough. In particularly heavy rain these can be worn underneath overtrousers.
Finally, you can buy gore-tex gaiters which fit around the edge of the boot and form a watertight
seal. These give full lower leg protection and you can even wade through streams with them, rather
like wearing wellingtons. You don't even need gore-tex boots for this since the whole boot is
covered. If you want to do this, first make sure that the boots you buy are useable with the
gaiters, they don't fit all boots. Never tried them myself, others could give more information
about those.
Happy rain walking!
Paul
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