Can Lighter Boots Really Give Support?
AMC Outdoors, October 2003
By Michael Lanza
In short, yes. Although you’ll always get more support from heavier, stiffer boots, outdoor footwear is getting lighter thanks to innovative designs and materials. Peek into this manufacturers’ bag of tricks and you’ll see:
- Designs that emphasize support where needed while reducing material elsewhere.
- Combinations of nylon (which can reduce the weight of a pair of boots by several ounces compared to leather) and mesh in uppers instead of leather; some manufacturers are experimenting with synthetic leather, which has some of the beneficial properties of leather while being lighter.
- High-tech midsole materials like Kevlar, carbon fiber, and fiberglass that slash weight by 25 percent, and nylon and polypropylene replacing steel in shanks.
- A reduction in the amount of rubber in the outsole achieved by making the sole thinner — which doesn’t affect the life span of lightweight hiking shoes — or injecting foam, which is lighter than rubber, into the interior outsole lugs, which suffer less wear than perimeter lugs.
—Michael Lanza is author of The Ultimate Guide to Backcountry Travel, from AMC Books.
