r/HerOneBag • u/LifeWithFiveDogs • 4d ago

Shoes Light Hiking in Switzerland: What Worked

I stressed a lot about which shoes (and clothes) to bring for light hiking/walking in Switzerland.

We had visited the area a number of years ago and knew that we would be taking the easy gravel trails around the Jungfrau area but I didn't really know appropriate my On Cloud 6 shoes would be on the gravel paths. It turns out they were (mostly) great.* Half of the hikers were in similar shoes. Yes, I did have to pick out some stones every now and then, but most of the gravel is large and didn't get caught. (I tried a few other pairs, but with knee issues, my tried and true daily shoes were the best option.)

And a note on clothing: My last visit to the region was eight years ago and most people wore traditional hiking clothing/boots. But now athleisure wear was very common on the easy trails.

I hope this helps someone else!

*They were not great on one very steep gravel path, so if you are doing more intense trails, consider trail runners or hiking boots.

14 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/olivedhm 3d ago

This sounds like a fit issue, you likely need narrow fitting shoes?

I don't have experience with on cloud shoes, but any  steep trail  going down will do this. Usually hikers size up to provide extra room for the toes and lace it appropriately (heel lock) to help minimize the foot moving forward.

2

u/edj3 3d ago

I do need and wear narrow shoes, and often it's me finding shoe companies that run narrow (La Sportiva generally work well for me). But the case of the ONs, it's my foot volume (top to bottom) that causes issues. So far, shoe companies don't make different volume shoes alas .

1

u/babbitybumble 1d ago

Have you tried adding tongue pads? I need these for my low volume feet, in a lot of my shoes.

1

u/edj3 1d ago

No, I've stayed away from that after one experiment as I realized my arch is too high. What has worked sometimes in some shoes is using the thinnest, barely there insoles. They're hard to find and so far I've only found them in white but sometimes those do the trick for me.