Hiking in thongs

[ErichFromm]

I'm sure you've already seen this, but just in case:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/tourist-rescued-from-aonach-mor-mountain-in-scotland-after-attempting-hike-in-thongs/story-e6frfq80-1226963622771

My aim is to get the same number of views of this post as WalkerChris77s now famous and informative "...." post..

[Travis22]

Viewed

..



Travis.

[north-north-west]

T shirts. Boardshorts. Thongs. Perfect summer walking gear except the lack of brains.

[DaveNoble]

At least he was rescued, unlike the guy who set out on the Overland Track wearing thongs who didn't make it.

Dave

[GPSGuided]

Silly man! He should have known that it all works either in boots or bare feet. Bad practice to go in-between where nothing works as intended.

[ErichFromm]

I remember Ed Stafford in "Walking the amazon" wearing Crocs for large parts of it. But I guess hot tropical climates is a little different to freezing snow capped mountains....

[walkon]

Yeah I can't hike in thongs either, I'm more of a briefs man myself!

[peregrinator]

I'm sure you've already seen this, but just in case:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/tourist-rescued-from-aonach-mor-mountain-in-scotland-after-attempting-hike-in-thongs/story-e6frfq80-1226963622771

My aim is to get the same number of views of this post as WalkerChris77s now famous and informative "...." post..

Re your first sentence, no I ain't seen it already. And still haven't. And never will.

Re your final sentence, good luck, mate. This game could catch on (but I sincerely hope not).

What about a thread titled Erich Fromm died in 1980 while not bushwalking in the Swiss alps?

Regards,
Max Weber

[perfectlydark]

Wow...I mean I pack them for campsite "shoes" (good to get some air for the feet) but walking in them? what?
Btw hope this doesnt make me a bogan haha

[RonK]

meh - they are regular footwear for Nepali porters.

[walkerchris77]

Wife sometimes walks with 3 thongs. Left , right and middle. I told her it was unsafe.

[walkerchris77]

Looks like one or the rescuers has his own problem

Attachments

[Dolerite Walker]

Choice of underwear is a personal matter.

[ULWalkingPhil]

I like to wear them in camp, depending on the climate. There light enough and don't take up much room in yourpack. I would not wear them out on a walk with pack on.



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[Hallu]

it doesn’t mean that you can take mountains lightly, especially not the high mountains like Ben Nevis and Aonach Mor which are both over 4,000ft (1219m)

lol, poor pommies thinking 1200 m is a high mountain =)

[Allchin09]

They weren't thongs, but on a few overnight bushwalks and canyoning trips I wore crocs the whole time. Only problems I had were dirty feet (except for when walking in water) and a sharp stick piercing through the sole into my foot... but other than that, they were great!

[tom_brennan]

We met a couple at Upper Travers Hut on the Travers-Sabine Circuit a few years. He was hiking in Crocs. Apparently he normally hiked in thongs, but they had broken. He didn't seem to have any problem with the 1000m descent off Travers Saddle, or the snow and sleet crossing the pass. They only had about 4 days to complete the circuit, so they were moving fairly quickly. Each to their own.

Previously he'd done the Heaphy Track in thongs.

[slparker]

For thousands of years people walked the south-coast track and the overland track in bare feet.

[Nuts]

That's right.
Aye, if indeed you haven't taken thongs to the limits of their endurance- go have another childhood!

[Mechanic-AL]

If you want to bushwalk in thongs then Double Pluggers are the only way to go!! Wouldn't mind betting the dude in Scotland and our man on the OLT were both shod in crappy single pluggers. Just asking for trouble.

[SteveJ]

Aye, if indeed you haven't taken thongs to the limits of their endurance- go have another childhood!

I exceeded the safe working load of thongs for more years than i care to remeber; bush walking, skateboarding, BMX racing, fishing.....oh to have the carefree mind and way of a kid again. It was only a few years ago my wife told me to not wear my "safety thongs" whilst I was up a ladder chainsawing a branch, she said it was not safe, so..... I did it in bare feet. I still have two feet....

[north-north-west]

For thousands of years people walked the south-coast track and the overland track in bare feet.

Not in the snow.

[slparker]

For thousands of years people walked the south-coast track and the overland track in bare feet.

Not in the snow.

yep, in the snow.
There's ethnographical record of Tasmanian aborigines walking in snow in the 1800s. How could they avoid it? when it snowed it's not as if you can sit inside for a week. the only record of Tasmanian aborigines having hides on their feet was in the event of a foot injury.
If your statement relates to location- i doubt that tasmanians regularly were on the overland track area or in the central highlands in winter, but it does snow on the overland track in summer, aborigines used that area in summer, ergo... tasmanians were in the central highlands in winter at least one year in the 1820s because they were forced to winter in the regions above Bothwell during the Black War.

They certainly were in the south-west track/port davey area over the last millenia during winter and it still snows that way during winter.
So, yes - they walked in snow in bare feet.

Furthermore, The tasmanians were around during the last age - I'm pretty sure that there was snow around then. Although it is possible they resorted to wearing footwear of some kind. There hunter gatherer tribes in Tierra del Feugo who similarly went largely naked in the winter in far more extreme conditions than Tasmania endures currently.

Last edited by slparker on Wed 25 Jun, 2014 12:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.

[GPSGuided]

I shudder to think of being naked in Tassie winter.

[ErichFromm]

I shudder to think of being naked in Tassie winter.

I remember watching a discussion of common myths: one of them was the belief that we lose a majority of heat from our heads. The counter argument was "next time you go to the snow take off all your clothes and see if it's your head you are worried about"....

[perfectlydark]

The heat from your heads myth began by some us army research that found most heat was lost on test subjects in the head...who had no headwear but otherwise heavily rugged up in cold conditions..needless to say thats where the heat loss was!

[walkerchris77]

I shudder to think of being naked in Tassie winter.

Shrinkage!!!
Gone from an outie to a inie

[slparker]

For thousands of years people walked the south-coast track and the overland track in bare feet.

Not in the snow.

Not reaching for one-upmanship, just that i found the reference when reading yesterday. In Plomley's 'friendly Mission' (the diaries of George Augustus Robinson) Robinson reports that henry hellyer, the surveyor for the Van Dieman's land company in the 1800s, records that (to his surprise) that he saw aboriginals travelling through the vale of belvoir in the snow whilst in their normal near-naked state. It seems probable that this was not an unusual occurrence as aboriginal hunting grounds would often be subject to snow. The climate was colder in the 1800s than now and the meander river at deloraine was recorded to have ice across the entire river (though I wouldn't have thought it to be thick) in particularly cold winters.
i don't know how they did it either but it appears that you don't need goretex, leather boots or any footwear at all to live, hunt and walk in the snow. I do have a reference on metabolic adaptation in Tasmanian aborigines that i haven't perused yet that probably explains how. me? I'd freeze.

[FootTrack]

I do have a reference on metabolic adaptation in Tasmanian aborigines that i haven't perused yet that probably explains how.

Hey slparker, what's your article/reference called? I'd be really interested to read that as well!

[GPSGuided]

The heat from your heads myth began by some us army research that found most heat was lost on test subjects in the head...who had no headwear but otherwise heavily rugged up in cold conditions..needless to say thats where the heat loss was!

Well, you can't really use walking/standing in snow as a reference in that study. Quite simply, the environmental conditions are different when one is standing in snow while the head is surrounded by air. For identical environment, the high head blood flow explains why there's a disproportionally high heat loss when compared with peripheral circulation down the legs, one that can shut down dramatically when cold. Shut down one's head circulation and there's a dead brain!