Altitude Foot Swell?

[crackers]

What's your experience with your feet getting bigger above 5k meters? One size? Half a Euro size?

 

I'd love to hear your experience with your feet above 4,000 meters. How long where you how high? How old were you and how fit were you when you went up? What kind of climbing did you do? What boots did you use?

 

No offense, but honestly if your experience was in your hallway in the lower 48, well, that's not the kind of info that I believe will benefit me. Thanks!

[DPS]

On Denali I used my old Invernos with heat molded Intuition Liners. The new liners seemed to add at least half a size of room in the boot (the stock liners fit perfectly, but packed out after 10 years). In Extreme Alpinism, Mark Twight advises buying plastic boots 1/2 size small if you plan on using Intuition liners, for this reason I suppose.

 

I did not notice any significant swelling, and even with my thickest sock combo the boots felt sloppy at 6k. We spent a total of 4 or 5 days above the 14k camp on the West Butt. I was 36 and was very fit. We ended up just doing the Butt. An upset wife and really horrible weather for two weeks after our West Butt summit acclimitazion attempt shut down our plans for a more technical route.

Edited May 3, 2012 by DPS

[Dane]

Feet swell from use not from altitude. If your feet swell at 5K feet they will likely swell at 20K'. Never seen a client's or partner's feet swell. Never heard of anyone's feet swelling.

 

Wive's tell and totally bs.

 

On the other hand the early '80s foam liners did swell. If you were going high enough it was worth addressing and easy enough by just using thinner socks up high. The insulation was better when the inner foam did swell btw. So thinner socks wasn't a big deal if your feet were tough enough.

 

Not a worry in today's boots.

 

Sunburn your feet? Then they will swell

[Fromage]

In Extreme Alpinism, Mark Twight advises buying plastic boots 1/2 size small if you plan on using Intuition liners, for this reason I suppose.

 

Mark Twight also advocated the use of twin ropes in that book, so I don't take everything he says as gospel.

 

If I'm sketched out on an alpine rock lead, knowing that my rope system is going to place the most amount of dynamic load on my last piece if I fall (relative to a single rope or double ropes), that is not worth the tradeoff of a few g/m in my book.

 

The man had some bold ideas about climbing technique, equipment, and training in his day, many of which have been widely embraced, but some of his ideas worked for him because he was Mark Twight.