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Five-Ten Canyoneer Shoes Field Report
Tom Jones, Age 47, Male
5' 11" tall (1.8m), 180 lbs (82 kg)
tom at jrat dot com
Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
August 13, 2004
Backpacking Background:
I started backpacking as a young sprout, spending every-other weekend in high school swatting black flies in New Hampshire. I discovered rock-climbing at age 18 and devoted my outdoor life to climbing for 20 years.
Aging knees and renewed interest in wild places inspired by the redrock canyons of Utah has brought me back to hiking as a primary sport. Between technical canyoneering and backpacking, I spend 60-100 days in the field per year.
My style started as mid-weight using the best equipment of the time. More recently, sore knees and carrying technical gear have pushed me toward ultralight. I hike and backpack in the Utah desert, in all seasons, rarely following marked trails and visiting places others rarely venture. I love technical canyoneering, and have a website devoted to it, www.CanyoneeringUSA.com
My Feet: I have messed-up, mature-runner feet. I've done a lot of running and hiking, and worn sandals for months at a time, so my front arch has collapsed, and my forefeet are flat. Thus, I need shoes that are wide. If I wear shoes that are too narrow, it feels like someone is driving a red-hot nail into the center of my foot.
Product Information
Manufacturer: Five Ten www.fiveten.com
Year: 2004
Listed Weight: none
Actual Weight: 2 lb 8.0 oz (1134 g) per pair (size 10-1/2)
(Royal RC40 high quality postal scale)
Date Received: May 14, 2004
Description
The Canyoneer is a specialized shoe for technical wet canyoneering. It is a heavy sneaker, with a sticky-rubber sole and big toe and heel bumpers. The middle of the shoe is 3-D mesh that drains water well, and the top is a wrap of neoprene that velcros around the ankle. Two plastic straps with buckles keep the shoe tight.
Field Testing Conditions
I tested the Canyoneers on the following technical canyoneering trips:
1. Pandora's Box: A long one-day technical canyon with a fair amount of tight squeezes, some chimneying, climbing and jumping, and a 3 hour walk out in soft sand (and hot sun). Mostly dry. (Chimneying is moving through a narrow canyon with the feet on one wall and the back on the other).
2. Allen Dump One: a half-day dry canyon with a lot of walking, and a nice not-too-difficult climb up a sandstone slickrock buttress.
3. Moe Slot: a long one-day canyon with a wide variety of technical obstacles. A lot of walking, some climbing and chimneying, plus quite a bit of wading and swimming.
4. Neon: since we only did half, a long half-day canyon with swims, downclimbs, chimneying and rappels.
5. Kolob: a wet, technical canyon with rappels, swimming and some climbing, followed by 3 hours of hiking down the canyon, then a steep, nasty 2000-foot (600 m) climb out the MIA bushwhack route; with 40 lb (18 kg) packs.
6. Imlay: a very wet, very technical canyon with a lot of rappeling, swimming, climbing, and a few nasty pothole exit problems; followed by a 2 hour hike out the Zion Narrows with 30 lb (14 kg) packs.
In addition, I used them for 'backpacking' on the following trips:
7. Associated with Moe Slot and Neon, we backpacked down 1-1/2 hours to the mouth of Fence Canyon. Pack weight was about 45 lb (21 kg). We packed back up two days later - carrying about 40 lb (18 kg). Walking was on slickrock and loose sand.
8. Overnight backpack trip in the Zion Narrows. With camera gear, my pack weight was about 25 lb (11 kg). Walking was mostly beside the river in mud, dirt and on rocks and rough ground; and about 1/3 in the river with many round stones covered with slippery silt and algae.
All these trips were in sandstone canyons in the Utah desert, and in summer. Temperatures were from about 45 F (7 C) in the coldest potholes to 105 F (41 C) on the hottest hike out. Pack weight in technical canyons ran from 25 - 40 lb (11 - 18 kg).
Field Test Results
With these 8 hard canyon days, the Canyoneers are holding up very well. The small, metal drain-hole plugs on one shoe have popped out, but no other signs of wear are evident. I am somewhat surprised, as both Pandora's Box and Moe Slot had a lot of foot-jamming type stuff that is hard on the shoes, but this particular pair resisted getting beat up.
Technical Performance
The shoes are very sticky and climb exceptionally well. Their performance is very solid and predictable, even on wet, slimy rocks and normally slick surfaces. While the fit is too floppy for edging, the super-sticky rubber makes for excellent smearing. Pandora's Box involved some high chimneying with a few stretchy moves, and the shoes felt really solid even when extended.
(Edging is a climbing technique that places the edge of the shoe on a small edge, to stand on. It requires very tight shoes to work well. Smearing is a technique where the shoe is placed flat on the rock surface to get the maximum surface area, and relies on the stickiness of the rubber to climb. It does not require tight shoes.)
In and out of the water, the size of the shoes did not change and they did not require adjustment, other than a bit of tightening once they got warmed up.
The soles are relatively hard, and the Canyoneers are not good for jumping down. The landings are harsh, especially compared to running shoes. Unfortunately, canyons can have a lot of jumping down.
Fit and Comfort
The wide, soft fit of the Canyoneers match my requirements well. I always wear the shoes with a neoprene sock that provides warmth and padding, and keeps sand away from the feet. In the past, I have used Superfeet foot beds in the Canyoneers, to provide a little extra stiffness over the foot beds provided with the shoe. For this test, I kept the stock foot beds in the shoes with mixed results.
I found the shoes a bit light on the foot protection. With the stock foot bed, rocks underfoot were felt a little more than I would have liked, and the shoes felt a little flat-footed. After a long day, my feet felt more beat up than I expected, though not enough for me to break down and switch to the firmer foot beds at hand in my gear bag.
My feet are unusual. I have a condition that matches web descriptions of Metatarsalgia, where the forefoot arch has collapsed and the 'knuckle' bones of the foot can rub against each other and feel like a hot nail is being pushed through my foot. This happens if I wear shoes that are too narrow. Further web-snooping reveals that small changes in the shape and hardness of the footbed can make a huge difference in the pain generated. The Superfeet foot beds seem to match my feet well, and I rarely have hot searing pain when wearing the Superfeet inside the Canyoneers.
Without the extra footbeds, the Canyoneers did not produce the hot searing pain 50% of the time. When they did produce the pain, it was mild and tolerable. It seemed like pain was associated with the shoes and neo socks being dry, which may have made the neo socks too tight. When we started walking in the water, the pain stopped.
On the most recent trip, hiking the Zion Narrows, at the start my feet were hurting badly. I was wearing new neoprene socks that were too tight in the toes, restricting the natural spreading of the toes from hiking. After an hour of tolerating the problem, I realized I had not retightened the straps, and doing so pulled the foot securely back into the heel cup, and diminished the pain by half. I think the metatarsal pain was aggravated by my toes hitting the front of the shoe.
There were no other foot problems with the shoes, as one might expect breaking in a new pair of shoes. Neoprene socks protect the foot from roughness found inside the shoe. In the past, I have found the shoes uncomfortable to wear with light socks, because the inside of the shoe is not as smooth as the inside of most sneakers.
The Straps
Having straps on a shoe is unusual, and I like it. Straps do not change size when the shoe gets wet or dries out, and do not come untied. The buckles can scrape annoyingly in tight slots, and the straps have had a tendency to break (on previous pairs I have owned). Unfortunately, the ends of the straps are just the right size for catching a rope, especially when coiling or stuffing in a rope silo. It is annoying. At the end of this test, I will carefully shorten the straps with scissors, so they will no longer catch the rope.
Low Maintenance
I'm not looking for a relationship. I want to use them, then toss them in the back of the car and ignore them for two weeks, then pull them out and use them again. What can I say, I'm a guy. The lower maintenance the gear is, the better.
Over the test period, I was especially guy-like, and made a point of ignoring the shoes as much as possible. Okay, really I was just lazy, and liked having an excuse for being so. No adverse reaction resulted from such irresponsible behavior, other than an unpleasant aroma permeating my vehicle at times.
Conclusions
A few of my favorite things:
1. They work great in technical canyons, and climb very well.
2. They are comfortable all day, and work right out of the box (with neoprene socks).
3. They are low maintenance, which works for guy-lifestyle.
Not so hot things:
1. Adding a firmer foot bed works for my unusual feet.
2. The ends of the straps catch ropes when coiling.
3. The lack of padding for jumping is unfortunate.
Thanks to Five Ten and BGT for the opportunity to test these marvelous shoes.
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