Fix Cold Pack Boots: Swap Felt Liners for Sunwalkers
PACK BOOTS
Periodically someone will write to me wanting to know if I still make pack boots. The answer is no. I did make them, and they utilized the Sunwalker inserts that I had been making for several years prior to making the pack boot itself.
Most pack boots, regardless if they are made in Asia or Canada or in the USA, have an insert that is made from felt. The felt is cheap and can be made easily, but it absorbs and retains the moisture that comes out of the hundreds of thousands of pores located in your feet.
Once the moisture is absorbed it will very quickly cool and now you have a refrigerator around your feet. If you are in the arctic regions of the world it can freeze. In this case you now have a freezer covering your feet.
This is a situation that can be corrected quite easily, if you have pack boots replace the felted inserts with the tall Sunwalkers which will not absorb any moisture as the felt does. I also recommend that you also wear the tall (13 inch) Lamilite socks. This combination has demonstrated for years that it will keep feet warm as low as -50 F.
Take the felt inserts and trash them.
For those looking for pack boots my recommendation is that you buy the least costly pair you can find pull the inserts and also trash them and replace them with the tall Sunwalkers as well. You will now have a pair of pack boots that will perform for you as well as the pack boots I made. Also include wearing the Lamilite socks.
When these inexpensive pack boots wear out just replace them with a second pair, again throw away the inserts and continue to use the Sunwalkers and Lamilite socks, there is no telling how many pairs of pack boots they will last through.
SINCE I AM ON THE SUBJECT OF MOISTURE AND FEET
In my experience, the footwear that gives people trouble is footwear that traps ALL of the moisture that is coming out of their feet. Why is the moisture being trapped? Easy answer: much of the footwear manufactured today has a film lining it, branded or not, and that film keeps the moisture in.
Just some thoughts on my part.