Hiking Boots Help!

[Virtulale]

Ok I need help trying to find new hiking boots. I have broke my ankles in the past and wanna stick with boots. I currently use my Columbia boots but they are worn out with holes. I’m very athletic and a female if that matters lol.

One other note on high boots vs. trailrunners regarding your ankles: At least in most all the boots I've used, even very high winter boots unless they were very tight and laced very (too) tight and even then, they didn't really offer such support that might prevent turning an ankle in a fall. What they did was provide protection from abrasion and banging my ankles against rocks and more warmth in colder weather and a modicum of more waterproofness.

Are you saying that high boots protecting against turning an ankle is a myth? I've just heard that opinion many times.

[nyker]

I don't know if its a myth, but at least for me, I've used plenty of higher hiking and mountaineering boots and I still turned ankles on unstable ground. It luckily wasn't to the point of a sprain but still happened and the uppers really didn't provide that much support to stop it from happening at all they just went along with it.

Years ago when starting out, buying my first pairs of boots I remember the salespeople at the time were all saying adamantly that I needed high boots to protect against sprained ankles, so like any new unsuspecting hiker, I bought higher models for my first couple pairs of boots. They worked fine but were quite heavy vs lower versions (which admittedly 30 years ago were not that popular and in the myriad of brands and styles as now and the term "trail runner" was not common then). What a heavier boot does help though aside from abrasions I mentioned above, is to support better a heavier pack (40lbs +) if you're doing overnight backpacking so maybe that's in part the origin of the "support" that the higher boots are marketing with.

Now with that said, those really high logging boots that lace up a few inches higher, which might help more but then again you probably don't want to hike in those any length of time and if boots are really that corset-tight, not sure how comfortable they'd be hiking in on steep terrain.

[griddles]

I have poor ankles (playing soccer in Iowa cornfields will do that). I have used high boots for both day hikes and backpacking with 40+lbs bags. They did nothing to stop me from twisting my ankles again. I have switched to much lighter, more comfortable trail runners even for heavier hauls. I haven't had similar problems at all. My feet feel better and my legs are less tired.

Very scientific.

[justiner]

You really really need an exceptionally rigid boot to gain ankle support to stop sprains from happening - think ski boot. You may then consider a brace instead and use whatever shoe you like. The A60 is the gold standard: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Aircast+A60

This is not a long-term solution, as keeping your foot in a brace is ultimately going to weaken things in ways that may make it easy to sprain in the future. If you're coming out to CO to do some 14ers for a few days - hey: fine.

The long term solution may be to do strengthen exercises and preconception drills. Figuring out what your limitations can help. Maybe your ankle will just take so much?

Anecdote: I managed to badly sprain an already bad ankle last summer. Slipped on some wet rock and down I went with all my body weight onto my ankle. Heard that POP! which made me think I broke the ankle - and oh! the PAIN. I went to a specialist and in 3 weeks I was good enough to do the Sangres Traverse. That's crazy. The work we did was a lot of funny looking walks, working on teaching the body to keep my leg inline with my ankle whenever it goes off to the side using the hip abductors. Takeaway is that there may be hope for you if you're a chronic ankle sprainer but you may need to seek some help.

To avoid sprains, a low stack shoe with little/no drop is just going to result in less sprains - it's just harder to sprain a foot that's near and flat to the ground. That doesn't match the profile of many boots and not all running shoes. There are some barefoot type shoes that do, but then there may be a compromise to comfort. It's all compromise - my fav shoes aren't close to the ground or have a low stack height/heel drop.

[Istoodupthere]

I’ve had good luck with Merrell and it’s pretty much all I use now for boots and trail runners.

Yes REI can be expensive. However, I almost always buy last season’s boots and when they are on sale. Then the dividend money adds up and I spend it on my boots.