It is significant to protect your feet when hiking.

Your feet are the main part of your body that you need to be at their fullest when hiking.

Your feet will get you where you want to go. Your feet will get you back to where you started. You depend on your feet more than you depend on water in most cases. But, of course, water can be essential when your feet are disabled.

You must protect your feet when hiking. Unfortunately, many new hikers make that mistake and don’t protect their feet.

Not protecting your feet can lead to dangerous conditions and even make you hate hiking because of everyday bad experiences caused by it.

In this quick guide, I will show you how to protect your feet when hiking.

Protect Your Feet from Blisters

Blisters are one of the most common foot injuries in hiking.

Many hikers will get blisters at least once. I’ve had them a few times, but now I’ve been able to prevent them altogether.

The best way to prevent blisters is to wear hiking boots or shoes that fit you properly. If they’re too small, you’ll get blisters. If they’re too big, you’ll get blisters.

You should also break in new hiking boots or shoes before you use them on longer hikes. Then, wear them on a few shorter hikes to get used to them.

If you get blisters while hiking, relieve the pain with moleskins or putting Band-Aids over the blister. You want to prevent it from rubbing against your shoe, making it worse.

Protect Your Feet from the Cold

First of all, make sure you get proper outdoor boots or shoes made for hiking.

Cold feet can ruin your hiking experience. Cold feet can also lead to quicker injury because the foot is cold and prone to injury.

Proper footwear for outdoor use will have materials built in to help protect your feet from the cold.

But you also want to wear proper socks.

I typically wear a thick alpaca wool sock during the coldest hiking season. I get my boots one size larger to wear thick socks comfortably. When not wearing them, I tie my boots tight to make them fit perfectly.

I’ve found that synthetic wool socks are best for keeping your feet warm during the colder hiking seasons.

They also made foot and toe warmers that might be extra warm when it’s even colder.

Protect Your Feet from Water

If you get your feet wet, it can cause blisters and even increase your chances of injury.

Wet feet could lead to cold weather-related injuries and even frostbite if it’s cold outside.

Wearing waterproof hiking boots is the best way to prevent your feet from getting wet. These boots are designed to keep water from the boot when walking through it.

But if you walk in deeper water, it can still get over your boot and into where your feet are. This is because the water inside a waterproof boot typically remains until you take it off and dump it.

You can buy neoprene socks (or waterproof socks) to prevent your feet from getting wetter.

Plastic grocery bags can also help keep your feet dry if the boot has become wet inside. Just wear them over your feet in the boot to keep the water from contacting your feet. Again, it’s a cheap and effective solution in the backcountry.

It’s essential to protect your feet when hiking. The scenarios above are a reminder that making the mistake of not protecting your feet could result in injury or even hate for hiking. No one wants either of those things to happen. Take the advice above to heart and know it will help you protect your feet on any hike. If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to my free monthly newsletter for more hiking tips.

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