If you read my last post, about my day in Þórsmörk in 2012, you might have an inkling what this post is going to be about. A couple of years ago I joined a Facebook group which gives help and advice for people planning trips to Iceland and one thing they’re utterly obsessed with is the right footwear. Got to be waterproof, not just showerproof but able to be immersed in water for up to forty days and still come out bone-dry, otherwise you’re putting people’s lives at risk. Yes, the “putting people’s lives at risk” was a genuine response to someone saying “…you don’t actually need full-on Everest boots for summer tourist visits”. Waterproof boots. Waterproof socks. Full waterproofs of the kind that can stand up to Biblical floods. Everyone wants the exact brand of the exact correct boot. Oh, and they’re all “going to do a few hikes” which I’ve eventually realised means that a handful of them might walk the half-hour from the car park to Stuðlagil and everyone else means “from the car/bus to the sight we’ve parked next to”.
So it might cause some outrage in the group if I say that my tried-and-tested best footwear for a summer in Iceland is a pair of mountain sandals.
I’m very picky about these sandals. I’m not talking about cheap flipflops or even Birkenstocks. I’m talking about the ugliest of semi-orthopaedic and incredibly practical sandals. I want waterproof, I want soles that can tackle scree and I want them to grip my feet in the same way that I’d expect from my hiking boots.
My first pair, which I bought somewhere around 2004, were by Hi-Tec. That’s the most basic of UK high street outdoor shop own brands. The boys in my caving club had things like this which were useful for when we emerged from caves and I was highly influenced by them, although I bet 20 years down the line, they’re not evangelising about them, or even still wearing them. I lived and died in those things for fourteen years. I climbed mountains in them, I forded rivers in them, I climbed the occasional volcano in them, I wore them to the pool, I wore them kayaking and I paddled in the sea in them. But somewhere around 2018, the soles peeled away from the uppers. I took them to Timpsons, since they’re capable of fixing anything but these were beyond them. Our lovely lady had a go at glueing them back on but she clearly didn’t have much faith in the glue and she was right not to. It didn’t hold.
Go back to Millets and buy a new pair! Except that Hi-Tec didn’t make that kind of sandal anymore. Not at the time. If I went down to the shop in person, I’d take a look at the Ula Raft Sandals and the Sierra Sandals today. But in 2018, nothing.
What I want is:
- Waterproof. I see so many sandals that look promising but turn out to have a slightly furry suede-like insole that surely isn’t waterproof, or is going to feel unpleasant wet if it is
- Open toes. A trainer doesn’t become a sandal just because you’ve cut the heel out
- Chunky straps. Thin dainty straps are ten a penny but they’re not what I want
- Straps over toes, mid-foot and around heel. The latter two need to be adjustable and even better if the toe strap is too
- Those adjustments should be made with velcro, not buckles. I can live with buckles if I need to but chunks of solid plastic don’t mould themselves to the foot the way neoprene and velcro do.
- They need to feel sturdy. I once tried on the Tevas and whether it was the relatively thick foam sole or the relatively limp webbing straps, the whole thing felt wobbly
- Preferably I don’t want to pay more than about £40 for them. I’ve turned down perfect sandals because how much??
You wouldn’t think that’s an exhaustive list but my experience is that I will find one pair of sandals which I will buy and tolerate any minor imperfections because beggars can’t be choosers, hence the “I can live with buckles if I need to”. My second pair were by The North Face, the Hedgehog IIs in a shade of purple & pink that I didn’t love after my light blue & grey Hi-Tecs and I particularly didn’t love the price. But it was the only suitable sandal available at the time and you have to take what you can get.
That pair lasted, what, four years? By the summer of 2022, the toe straps were coming out of their moorings and were not taking to the glue any more than the Hi-Tecs could. Dirt cheap sandals, fourteen years. Expensive sandals, four. Ridiculous. Anyway, I was camping in the Mendips when I realised that my sandals just weren’t going to stay together no matter how much glue I threw at them and I spent an entire morning running around Clark’s Village shouting “This is a shoe village! There has to be something here!”
See, The North Face had discontinued the Hedgehog IIs and I can’t remember what it was that I didn’t like about the Hedgehog IIIs. Looking at them now, I can’t see anything hideously wrong with them. But I ended up with a pair of Karrimor sandals which my memory says were white but the photographic evidence says were black. Well, black straps and white insole. Those things lasted – and it hurts to say this – one year. The very next summer, I was already shopping for a new pair, furious that my Hi-Tecs had lasted nearly three times as long as the last two pairs put together. You find the perfect sandals and they break? Year after year? It’s disgraceful that a pair of summer shoes only lasts one summer! And I was going to Iceland the next weekend and only had a few days to find a replacement!
Which is how I ended up with a pair of Tevas. Now, they weren’t the originals. I vividly and painfully remember the shop assistant making some comment about “the cool hiking girls” so I was already morally opposed to them but they were unstable. They weren’t sturdy. I ended up with the Teva Terra Fi Lite in Burnt Olive, which were fairly sturdy sandals nearly disguised as the sort with delicate straps and far more expensive than I wanted but again, beggars can’t be choosers.
You’ll never guess what. By the summer of 2024, in Poland on my way to the Eras tour, I found myself needing to buy some new sandals yet again. A year. Another single year. If I’d been furious in 2023 as I tried to buy these things after two pairs had fallen apart far too quickly, imagine my feelings when the most expensive pair of all had lasted just one year again. It’s enough to put you off this style of sandal. They’re clearly deeply unreliable. But they’re also so practical and I just need to find the right pair of Hi-Tec-a-likes!
But I was in Poland and limited to what I could find without walking distance of wherever I was, which was the centre of Łódź. Łódź, fortunately, is blessed with a massive shopping centre disguised as a tourist attraction and it has a Decathlon, where I came across a pair of children’s sandals. The adult ones had weird upturned toes, which I hadn’t thought to put on my list of “things I don’t like in a mountain sandal”. No, the kids ones (MH120 or NH500, depending on the colour) were perfect. There was a very clear divide between boys’ sandals and girls’ sandals but the boys’ went up to a 39, which is my size so despite preferring the girls’ colourway, I grabbed the boys’, which were in a bright blue. And fingers crossed but it’s nearly two years later and those sandals are still holding together.
Actually, last summer I went back and bought them in two more colours. Experience says they’re not going to last long and they’re a pig to replace so if you can find a pair that works and is cheap (£17.99, god bless children’s shoe prices!), you might as well grab a few spares. So I have a pair in black and orange that I wore in Iceland last year and I just broke in the pink and grey ones last month for our trip to Malaga.
Why do I like them? Well, they’re sturdy and they’re waterproof. They’re ideal for climbing mountains or fording rivers. They’re not going to slip off my foot or make me slide around until I break an ankle and they’re not going to dissolve if they get wet. Feet dry quicker than any kind of sock or sandal, I can be spontaneous when it comes to trails or deciding the best angle for a picture of that waterfall is from halfway across the stream flowing away from it. They’re easy to step into when you need to leave your tent or campervan in a hurry, even if you don’t actually stick the straps down. They’re easy to put on damp feet after you’ve been swimming. You don’t need to pack socks! By mid-March, April at the latest, I’ve discarded my actual shoes and I’ll live in my sandals for the next six or eight months. These days, the only thing I wear solid footwear for in Iceland is proper hiking – even on the Laugavegur Trail, I did the second half of the last day in sandals rather than boots. I wore my boots for the hike out to Meradalir in 2022. I wore them for the Askja hike I did in 2023, although I wore my sandals up to Askja. I thought I remembered splashing around at the top of the waterfall on the way in sandals. And I’d wear boots if I was visiting a hot springs area, where you might accidentally put your foot through boiling mud. I daresay a boot wouldn’t be much more protection against boiling mud in reality but it’s more psychological protection.
But for day to day life, I think this kind of sandal is so versatile that it’s the only kind of footwear I took with me to Iceland last week (I assume; I’m writing this in April but I don’t think anything is going to change my mind after all these years).
I Am A Polar Bear 