Well I managed to cut that one close. Have to get an article out to the Examiner a minimum of every two weeks to maintain my hard earned “newsworthy” status. This turned out to be a rough two weeks another bout of pneumonia to deal with running myself ragged trying to get my patient to all the doctor appointments and pick up all the prescriptions. I tend to need a lot of peace and quiet for any ideas to come into my idea resistant brain, but much to my surprise on the very last day it occurred to me that I might know something about hiking boots.
So I went online and did a search of this year’s new models and as I paged through the results I realized that I was more of an expert than I thought. I perused the high end Lowa, Vasque and Rocky boot sites and then went on to look at the less lofty Merrel and Hi-Tech models. As I did so I realized that I have owned and literally walked the soles off of all except the Lowa brand. Well, actually my Vasque’s have proven impervious to wear at this point, but with any luck I will get the chance to wear those out as well.
So anyway I managed to put together the article and get it published by the deadline and in doing so was able to give myself another walk down memory lane. My first good boots were actually Coleman Dry’s and I wore them out snowshoeing and replaced them with some cheap non-waterproof boots from Walmart. Don’t remember what they were. It was my photo trip to the Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival that I decided I would have to get some good boots. The mass launch was very early in the morning and I determined that a climb to the top of the hill just east of the Chatfield beach would give me a bird’s eye view of the whole thing and by the time I had slogged through the wet grass to the top my feet were cold and soaked. Soon thereafter I purchased my first Gore-Tex lined Rocky’s. Those boots carried my feet to some of my best photo memories and snowshoe adventures in my memory. They took me to the top of Mount Evans and high into the Indian Creek Wilderness to Crater Lakes. I walked countless miles of tracks getting my collection of railway imagery. Finally just after moving into the shadow of Pikes Peak I was walking my dogs one day when I noticed my feet seemed unusually cold. Close inspection revealed that the soles had become separated from the boots. Then came a pair of waterproof Merrel’s which I wore out on the trails of the Pike National Forest near the north face of the big mountain. More of the same removed the soles from a pair of Hi-Tec’s and now I’m working on my most durable pair yet, the Vasque’s. God willing I will wear those out exploring the Lost Creek Wilderness and maybe even the Collegiate Peaks.
And by some stroke of good fortune, my hiking boots article may have landed another story in my lap. Much to my surprise, someone from Vasque must have liked my story and it looks like I am going to get the chance to field test a pair of Vasque’s new Breeze 2.0 model. Be sure to find out all the details on this fantastic looking boot by getting your free subscription to my Examiner news feed in time to receive the report!
