I ran across this interesting article on The Trek.co about what footwear people wore while hiking the 2190 mile Appalachian trail. Taking many weeks to complete, the trail is a grueling test of equipment. Most trail hikers ended up wearing out 4-5 sets of shoes – matching the recommendation to retire shoes after 500 miles of hiking.

The most interesting point to me was that hiking boots were not high on the list of footwear hikers have been wearing. While still recommended for snowy sections, the vast majority of the hikers used trail runners. When I started hiking decades ago, I actually preferred hiking easier trails in more rugged tennis shoes too. I somewhat feel vindicated. 🙂 The data they collected for the last 2 years shows boots were only worn by around 10% of hikers. There was also the trend that people that started with hiking boots were more likely to end up switching to trail runners during their journey.

Shoe satisfaction showed 91 percent of respondents who began their hike in trail runners said they were happy with their choice. On the other hand, only 64 percent of hikers starting in hiking boots were satisfied.

For all shoe types, fit was one of the most important factors in switching footwear; which just reinforces the age-old wisdom to get plenty of long miles in your boots/shoes before major trips to make sure they don’t have any hot spots, issues with swelling feet, or other similar problems. I personally find the adage of ‘breaking in’ boots/shoes to be complete bunk. In my experience, if the shoes don’t fit and aren’t comfortable right off, they never become so later.

You can read the rest of the excellent article since it also has recommendations and breakdown of hiking shoes, socks, and other equipment they most used. The summary was this:

1. The trend of most hikers wearing trail runners over heavier, sturdier boots continued this year; the numbers were about the same as last year with a slight (3%) dip in popularity for trail runners.
2. While boots may still be preferable during the snowy sections, we recommend that hikers planning thrus or long sections consider lightweight, more flexible shoes for the majority of their hikes.
3. In general, thru-hikers should plan to go through four to five pairs of trail runners or two to three pairs of boots.
4. Altra remains the top brand for trail runners, and the most popular model was the Lone Peak.
5. Topo Athletic made the list for the first time, ranking in the top 4 brands and boasting the third most popular model overall with the Ultraventure.
6. Darn Tough, Injinji, and Smartwool socks were all well-represented on the AT, but Darn Tough was by far the most popular with 75 percent of respondents using them.
7. Injinji is the leader in sock liners, used by almost a third of respondents.