I will go first. It might seem counter intuitive that there is gear specific to this sort of outdoor recreating, but in my opinion there is. Some of it crosses over with ultralight hiking and backpacking and other outdoor activities. I am accumulating a "system" of said gear (I won't say collection, it sounds cluttery).
99% of the time I do wear something on my feet to hike. A few weeks ago I got mad at my Pace Gloves and socks and took them off and walked home a couple of miles barefoot in the woods, but I will tell that story later. I mostly wear Bikila LS and I happen to have a pair of gaiters to go with them.
I want to talk about my gaiters because I guess a lot of folks don't know that there are gaiters for alternative shoes. You might want to know why I am wearing gaiters in Florida. Well there is no actual dirt in Florida. It's ALL sand or duff, a powdery amalgamation of decaying leaf litter. It exists solely to get into your shoes. Yes, this problem could be solved by not wearing shoes, but Florida also has copious amounts of spiny and/or stinging plants and animals that are abundant in the particular places I like to hike. For me sand in the VFFs is not merely annoying, it is cause for great gouts of blisters if I do not immediately remove my shoes and change my socks.
I don't know how I found these gaiters exactly but I think I was Googling "ultralight gaiters". They're called
Dirty Girl Gaiters and I think they cost me like $20. They are just lycra, or some wicking material, an eye hook for your laces or a toe loop (
look here) and a bit of what I think is heavy duty nylon on the tip. They would be really easy and inexpensive to make if you can sew (hubby has started making some of our outdoor adventure gear this year).
Now keep on mind that they are not even remotely waterproof like traditional giganto Appalachian Trail gaiters. They are strictly to keep crap out of your shoes, even very fine-grained crap, and I get mine wet ALL the time. They do dry very fast though. I also wear them to keep ticks and chiggers from crawling up my pant legs, when I wear pants to hike. I really like mine because I really really hate blisters from sand in my shoes. They come in a variety of sassy and outlandish colors and prints. Being a surly misanthrope, mine are of course plain royal blue.
Just the gaiters
The whole hiking ensemble minus the pack (
why does my husband think this outfit is outlandish?)