A few weeks before the trip started, I picked up a pair of Vibram FiveFingers, the “barefoot” shoes with the individual toe pockets.  I’m not a runner, so my purchase was driven primarily by novelty.  Yeah, I was that guy.

My FiveFingers on my feet. Kind of like gloves, eh?

Happily, I’ve found my brown leather KSO Treks to be quite comfortable and functional as traveling shoes.  They have been great for driving — over 7000 miles so far — largely because of the excellent pedal feel they provide.  I haven’t brought them backpacking, since I like a bit more protection on the trail, but I have been using them while walking around town.

I have had to adjust my walking gait slightly while wearing the FiveFingers. The strong heel strike in my normal walking gait made my knees a bit sore after more than a few miles of walking on concrete in cities, so I experimented a bit and found a solution.  It’s simple enough: I just focus on performing a more uniform foot strike rather than a hard heel-first strike.  Kind of like the change necessary for running in them.

While in Denali, I tried using them for a very small bit of trail running, less than a mile, the day before we started our backcountry trek.  That led to some sore calves later during the backpacking, but the actual running felt fantastic.  It was like I was bouncing down the trail on springs.  Perhaps I’ll have to give them some more running use.

In short, they’ve been functionally satisfying.  That alone would have been enough, but they’ve also managed another useful trick: they’re great icebreakers.

FiveFingers have been on the market for a couple of years now, but it seems that many people are still unaware of their existence.  That has led to numerous situations where people have struck up conversations with me to ask about about my shoes.  “What are those?” and “Where did you get them?” have been the two most common questions.  One lady even took a photo of my feet (awkward!).

I suspect that my experience with the FiveFingers drawing attention has not been unique.  Tyler also had a pair with him in Alaska, and he was wearing them around Denali NP after we got done backpacking (I was wearing sandals at the time).  He, too, had a stranger come up to him and ask him about his shoes.

Now if only they could somehow get me more inbound links…