I’ve been using some Lem’s boulder boots and some wildling Arni shoes for a little while and this seems to be a great way to do most situations well but there’s an occasional few times where I think some other shoes with some other benefit would do well in a specific situation.
In the past I didn’t understand why some people have so many shoes but I’m starting to see why some might do that, like I’d imagine 4 pairs one for each season wouldn’t be a terrible idea as long as they cover enough points on a scale in a gradual way between sunny concrete and wet mud.
I like all the wildling shoes a lot but I think they are all pretty sameish besides a handful and some of that is to do with the bottom of their shoes always being pretty much the same, like no form of serious wet or winter or mud shoes would be from them simply because none of their shoes besides the one pair that looks like big classic yellow rain boots would have the right tread for those conditions.
At the moment my Arni’s are about done but ithink I could probably squeeze the rest of this year out of them and then my boulder boots from lems will last a long time still.
I do a bit of running and I find that is an important factor for shoes in all the conditions too because you can have those classic yellow rain boots that would do fine in a lot of rough conditions but you couldn’t run in them too well I don’t think.
Sometimes I wear the toe socks from injiji, sometimes I go no socks, the barefoot shoes from wildling are close enough to clothes for your feet that going without socks tends to be ok but not always. They say not to put them in the washer but they have done fine which is nice because I can treat it literally like clothes.
I’ve been wearing VFFs for, uh, fifteen years or so? Something like that? I think it might be a little more, I’m not sure now. I’ve also got a pair of VivoBarefoot hiking boots, and the Bellville MiniMil rough-out boots that end up being my utility shoes. The only times I don’t wear minimalist footwear is on a bicycle (I used SPD pedals), and on a motorcycle (I have Sidi Vortice and Mag-1 boots). I always wear socks with my boots, and always Injinji socks with my VFFs.
I’ve gotten so used to them that regular shoes feel very weird and uncomfortable.