GR5: Tyvek “Hut Sandals”
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When you turn up at an Alpine hut or gîte d’Etape, the best way to ensure a really frosty welcome is to tramp straight inside with your boots on.
A lot of the huts provide racks of sabots (sandals or clogs) that you can swap with your outdoor footwear before entering. But many don’t, and many don’t have enough in the right size to fit my size 11.5 feet.
Besides, it’s always nicer to wear something that only your own scary feet have seen the inside of!
But carrying sandals has always felt like more weight than it’s worth to me. I’ve mostly just used my socks but they do get rather dirty.
On the Haute Route I used thick elastic hair-ties to hold just the Superfeet insoles on to my socks. It worked, after a fashion. But it was rather dangerous as it was all too easy to catch the toe in something and have your foot “bungied” back to earth as the rest of you carried on forwards…
But this year, with some inspiration (once again!) from Lighthiker, I think I might have cracked it: Tyvek Clean Room over-shoes.
They’re ridiculously light at 28 grams for a pair.
The only supplier I’ve found sells them very cheaply at 55 pence per “shoe”.
Although the postage makes up for that at £6.50.
But, club together with some like-minded friends, go nuts and get two pairs and the price comes down to something more reasonable.
I’ve yet to try them extensively but from using them after a sauna in a camp site recently they seem fine.
They have a very thin, rubberised sole that works well to prevent them slipping.
Overall they’re so simple the only thing that remains to be seen is whether they’ll last the whole trip.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:36 PM
No. I just couldn’t!
Standards, dear thing! Standards! I chose to carry really heavy Innovate Mudrocs the length of Britain, ‘cos they were the right colour for my outfit…
April 14th, 2009 at 12:29 AM
You’ll be clean and static-free, just don’t stand on a peanut :o)
April 14th, 2009 at 10:55 AM
As Bob Cartwright always says in his Podcast: “Make a statement!” :-)
Hope they will be water resistant enough for the bathrooms in the huts and please let us know the comments of the other hut people when you wear them.
And I thought my nylon mesh shoes were quite unfashionable… :-)
April 14th, 2009 at 7:20 PM
Alan – fashion is a very plastic concept in Brighton… These things are positively normal compared with what we see from our window!
April 14th, 2009 at 7:22 PM
*ptc – Yes the lack of a hard sole might put some off. But having spent some time in Vibram Five Fingers I find I can cope :)
April 14th, 2009 at 7:24 PM
Lighthiker – They are going to start some conversations I’m sure (which LB will continue and I will smile and nod as I pick out the odd phrase! ;)
I’m not sure how much I’d trust them to keep water out in bathrooms. I wasn’t envisaging having socks on at that stage so it may work fine.
Nylon shoes? That’s soooo last century! Everyone’s wearing Tyvek these days! (Oh, you do…)