Foot Care for Hikers

Hiking requires you to walk long distances on un-even surfaces. For someone who hikes every once and a while, this can lead to sore feet. For an avid hiker, you will have major problems unless you take the proper care of your feet. Nothing will ruin a hiking trip more than having painful blisters develop half way through.

The main aspect of foot care for hikers is taking preventive measures to ensure that your feet remain in tip top shape. The first rule of foot care for hikers is to always have clean socks on. Have an extra clean pair on you at all times. After every couple of hours take a break to air out your feet. Pop your shoes off and let the breeze get in-between your toes for a couple of minutes. If you are hiking downhill than tie your laces around your ankles to prevent your toes from jamming against the front of the shoe. In fact, if you can avoid wearing hiking boots at all you will have a much more manageable foot care situation. If you wear running shoes you will have a much lower chance of developing blisters on your feet.

Blisters need to be gotten to as early as possible. The earlier you apply treatment to the blister the less likely it will form into a serious problem. Try to avoid popping the blister. Take some duct tape and make a hole for the blister to rest in. If you have no way around it and the blister has to be popped make sure that you do it with a sterilized needle in order to avoid infection.

Another common issue, when it comes to foot care for hikers is developing black toe. A black toe is a toenail that develops blood underneath. This is caused by your toe always hitting the front of the shoe. You can correct this by getting better fitting shoes or tightening up your laces. If your nail isn't falling off then you can simply trim the nail and put a piece of bandage over it to protect it from the front of the shoe.

Foot care for hikers also applies to keeping taps on your in grown toe nails. Ingrown toe nails occur because of a bad trimming job. The edge of the nail will grow into the flesh and cause considerable amount of pain especially when hiking. To treat, soak the toe in warm salty water and cut back the corners of the ingrown nail. It might help to place a piece of cotton with some anti-bacterial cream between the nail and the inflamed flesh.

Source:

http://www.abc-of-hiking.com/foot-care/ , ABC of Hiking