Footwear on Orientation Trips

 I am on the Steering Committee for Harvard's First-Year Outdoor Program and the policy of our program is that camp shoes must cover the whole foot.  This limits our students to basically old sneakers, which can take days to dry after being wet.  After our very wet training trips last spring, several leader trainees developed trench foot.  I know for me one of the greatest feelings of relief while hiking is kicking my boots off in the late afternoon and letting my feet dry in my Crocs. I was wondering if anyone could point to any research that suggests that closed sneakers are safer than crocs, keenes or other similar shoes.  So far I have only seen anecdotal support for Crocs and would be very interested to know if there was some more concrete evidence for them. Also, I would be interested to hear what other orientation programs' policies are in reference to camp shoes.  Thanks for any advice you can offer!

~Kevin Porter 

 Hi Kevin,

I don't think you'll find any research on this subject - how would you do it, either field-based or in the lab? It's just one of those things that we're never going to KNOW about and have to live with. This makes administrators and parents nervous but is at the heart of outdoor education.

Regarding Rick's concern over burns and shoe covering, I think this is more a question of how the cook sits rather than what is on his/her feet. Sitting on your bum, either cross-legged or in some other configuration is going to put your feet closest to the stove. Anything short of boots is going to allow some sort of burn is the pot tips. Squatting, however, has almost the opposite effect and allows for a quicker retreat ( I believe that's in the FOP manual too).

Cheers

Andrew