Hiking in Vibram 5 fingers

You may have seen from my hiking posts that I do all my hiking in Vibram five fingers (some shorter hikes, 2 hours or so I’ll do in bare feet). I even wrote a whole post about what I wear on my feet, you can find that here. This post however, is specifically about hiking in Vibrams.

I had been wearing Vibram 5 fingers and into bare footing for years before I got into doing any longer hiking and multi days so it was natural for me to just start hiking in 5 fingers as opposed to shoes or big hiking boots. One of the questions/suggestions/fears from others came in the form of needing ankle protection/stability. The typical conversation went on about uneven ground, heavy load on my back and the increased risk of rolling an ankle. Since I had been in 5 fingers for years before hand as my daily shoes, runners (up to 10km) and for parkour I had built up my very own ankle stability, I didn’t need to get it form a pair of boots.

As an aside I have once rolled an ankle, if you can call it that. I was walking backwards, carrying one side of a 150kg window when I slipped on a raised garden bed rolling my ankle. It took 75kg of additional weight to roll my ankle and the next day there was only very minor stiffness. So I feel more than confident in my ankle stability.

So the first main point:

Before you start hiking in 5 fingers your feet need to be conditioned to it.

I wore mind daily and could run 10km easily in them without feeling any pain in my feet or calves the next day so my feet were more than ready for the test.

And the second main point:

Your feet will be sore the next day

After all of my big hikes my feet have been somewhat sore the next day, a kind of worked muscle soreness from training. The hikes that I have done have been pretty long often 20km on the first day, so 20km on uneven ground with a 16-20kg pack is a huge task even if you are used to 5 fingers daily. This isn’t a major problem so long as you’re not planning to go for 2-3 days of 20km per day on your first hike in 5 fingers.

This next point applies to obstacle course racing also

You will spend a lot of the time with wet/muddy shoes

There will be mud

There will inevitably be a stream, or puddle or big mud pit that you have to cross, often there is a way around but if you’re in the bush you will come to one you cannot easily get around. You have to give in to the fact that your feet will be wet and muddy. I don’t often make much effort to get around big mud puddles now, since I know my feet will eventually get wet.

On this point it’s often easier to just keep walking in there is a little something in your shoe that bugging you as long as it’s not too big. Vibrams are difficult to get on and off when wet so it’s easier to just keep going. But then again I never get blisters so I can get away with something rubbing on my foot for hours.

Now for something quite timely

The risk of injury is greater

If you follow my posts you will know that I broke a toe on my last hike, and re injured my big toe joint on the hike before that. You really have to remain in the moment while hiking to stay safe, and you need to stay on top of your pre-hab and rehab to look after your feet. I hope to make a post in the future on my foot care/training.

Now lastly a look at the KSO vs the KSO trek

 I did my first hikes in KSO’s since they were my every day shoes and are the thinnest fully covered 5 fingers. They were pretty good however they have zero grip in wet and as they were thinner I found walking over large rocks quite difficult. This didn’t bother me so much, I was just a little slower but I couldn’t keep up with friends wearing boots. So by changing to slightly thicker KSO treks, with some grip I’m faster over rocks, will more grip in the mud. These are now my go to hiking shoe.

Lastly a quick point on gait

I find that minimalist shoes force the wearer to land with the ball of the foot directly under the centre of gravity. Doing so, I found that when I did slip in some mud my whole body with slip directly forward and I would remain standing. When others in boots slipped they were in a heel first gait so as the heel slipped out with their centre of gravity further back they would land on their ass, with a 16-20kg pack pulling them down.

For all the points above and more I really enjoy hiking in 5 fingers but I do urge caution and patients to build up to it.

Easy hike and the danger of not being present

After searching for semi local hikes and huts to check out I found one around 3 hours drive from my house that I wanted to check out. Leitches hut south of Te Kuiti has 4 open tracks leading to it, ranging from 3-7 hours. The 7 hour track would have been great if I could have taken a shorter walk out, 7 hours in is perfect for me but I really didn’t want to retrace my steps another 7 hours in the morning. I decided to take an easy 3 hour walk in as it was the easiest to get to and didn’t require private land owners permission for passage through.  

The track was really well maintained and the first half of the track was wide enough for a quad bike. This was really a welcome change from the last hike it did in the Waikato (see here for the Mt Pirongia climb).

The only problem was that I wasn’t particularly present while hiking in, for whatever reason my mind was elsewhere and I tripped a couple of times in my vibrams. The first trip was about half an hour in was quite painful and remained difficult to walk on (more on this later).

Seven goats only 50 meters away

Upon finally reaching the hut I was quite satisfied to take a break and just chill out at the hut reading (Fight Club) and listening to the Joe Rogan Experience. While I read I heard a kid (young goat) and got to watch 7 goats feeding 50 meters away which was really cool to see, I’d love to come back with a rifle to get some wild meat.

The walk back was much more enjoyable, I was fast and present and found the walk quite relaxing, however my toe was swollen and giving my just a little bit of trouble.

Fast forward a day and I decided it was best to have the toe checked out. As it turns out I had broken my toe. Now I’ve got two weeks with my toe strapped up before I get it re checked. I’m hoping for the best as I’ve got a 4 day hike planned for 3 weeks time.

A little bruising for a little break

On another note I quite enjoyed doing a much easier hike, while I enjoy the challenge of a rough trail; just walking slowly over a wide trail is very relaxing. In future I might try to get a mix of easier tourist trails and harder back country trails.

The track over this hill is closed to the public

Hiking Mt Pirongia

Mount Pirongia is the highest mountain in the Waikato region, and I’ve hiked to the summit once before and wanted to do it again. The first time I walked up, there was an old DoC (Department of conservation) hut and some really nice camp sites but they had since built a new 20 bed hut at the summit so I wanted to check that out. I had previously walked up the Tirohanga Track which is possibly the easiest way to the summit, then back down the Mahaukaura Track (a difficult track across a ridgeline). Links the the tracks here. It was about 20km and took the better part of 10 hours, it was a lot harder than I had expected. Being the way that I am I wanted to hike up via the longest track to stay the night on the summit so I planned to take the bell track.
 

The bell track is approximately 18km with a sign posted time of 8-12 hours for serious trampers. I set off with my bag weighing 16kg (4 kg of that was water) and the first half of the track was quite enjoyable. The first side track was a small set of limestone caves to walk through which was something quite cool to do. The next little side track was about 3 hours in, the tallest tree in the forest at 66m tall which again was a nice sight to check out. After another hour I got to the half way point, a small clearing/campsite where I took a breather for half an hour.

 

It was around this point that my toe started hurting. I had injured it the weekend before walking 20km along a beach, and this toe had previously been injured training parkour. The big toe joint was starting to hurt from overuse, but I just had to push on, keeping my mechanics as good as I could.

 

Sidenote: If you injure a big toe joint don’t turn your foot out to save the big toe joint, you will mess up your knee and hip mechanics, I’ve made this mistake before.

 

7 hours in and I still have to climb this

The track also got much rougher and less well sign posted at this point as well as progressively muddier. With about an hour to go to the cone I thought I would be walking mostly low gradient, then I caught a glimpse of the cone through the trees, I had a lot of uphill left to go. It was a very rough climb over rocks and through mud to the cone, and then the same to the hut, with very little board walk before reaching the hut.

 

I had originally planned to set up a tarpaulin and sleep under that but I was so worn out from 8 hours of hard tramping and with no one else in the hut I decided to take the easy indoor option. When I woke up the next morning my toe was still stiff and swollen and the track I was taking down to my car was 3-5 hours but I had to stuck it up and just do it. Again the track was quite rough and muddy but easier that the hike up, and reasonably enjoyable despite my toe.

 

Once I go back to my car I could barely walk, my big toe was swollen almost solid. It took several days to come right so I really need to address this problem joint in the future.

 

I really enjoy doing overnight hikes, I like getting out for a solid 8 hours of low level moving around and being out in nature. This hike was really hard, I enjoyed it but it wasn’t enjoyable at the time (if they makes sense). It’s another element to my fitness, and a lot of fun to ‘train’ because it’s really not training at all. I think the fitter I get doing these kinds of hikes the more enjoyable they will become as the weight of the pack, and the gradient of the track matter less as I get stronger.

 

Note: I try to keep my posts around 500-1000 words (closer to 500) but if you want to read some longer content post in the comments or on facebook because I could easily write around the 1500 work mark for some of these posts. 

Some berries at the start

The very first campsite at the bottom of the track

Hook grass everywhere

Lots of mud

Looking weary

Finally board walk

6am

Looking back to the cone

From the Summit

From the summit

The walk down

It was so close I could have touched it

Entoloma Hochstetteri.

Back down at the start