While hiking doesn’t necessarily require a lot of equipment one thing which is crucial to your enjoyment is a good pair of hiking boots. The right pair of hiking boots will give you comfortable support and have the traction which you need for the trickiest of surfaces. A poor pair of boots however can make a day’s hiking absolute misery.

Hiking for any reasonable distance will put a lot of stress on both your feet and ankles, which is then transmitted to your legs and affects your back and indeed your whole body. Although the majority of people think in terms of blisters from bad boots, the chief problem is not the possibility of developing blisters but is a lack of solid support.

The right boots will provide both the springiness and stiffness which your foot and ankle need. You have to be able to push against the ground, regardless of the surface conditions, with assurance and know that your boots are going to give you support. In the absence of the necessary support, sore feet and ankles, or even twisted ankles, are all but a certainty.

A lot of hiking boots now are made from a variety of specialized materials but, surprisingly, leather is still a large component of really good hiking boots. Leather has been used for many years in the manufacture of boots and is still in use today because it is tough, water-resistant (if treated), has good stiffness and excellent thermal and moisture properties.

When we talk about comfort it’s all too easy to replace this with the word luxury today but, in the case of hiking boots, comfort is a necessity rather than a luxury. You need to be able to hike for long distances without producing blisters or chafing and you need to be able to keep your boots on for extended periods of time without moisture building-up or excessive heat or cold becoming a problem.

Buy a pair of hiking boots which feel right for your feet and that doesn’t simply mean getting a pair of boots which are the correct size. Get boots which feel good the minute you put them on and don’t be fooled by the old saying that ‘they are going to feel a bit uncomfortable until you have broken them in’. New boots will of course wear in, but if they don’t feel right when you first get them then they will rarely feel right later on.

Remember also that hiking boots are not shoes. They ought to feel stiff and have little give around the ankle and on the outer sole if they are to do the job which they are designed to do.

You are going to be scrambling over slippery gravel, wet rocks, flaking hills and muddy trails and, despite the fact that no boot is going to cope perfectly with every eventuality, the correct pair of hiking boots, such as today’s Asolo, Timberland or Vasque hiking boots, will come very close to doing so.

Today’s hiking boots use various materials and geometries to minimize slippage on wet rocks and maximize traction on flaking slopes and Vibram lugs with some form of tread should be your minimum requirement. These hiking boots look a little like car tires, although with a bit more plastic and a bit less rubber.

There are of course other things which you have to look out for, such as gusseted tongues which will keep out stones and gravel, but the major features covered here, and that you will find on many discount hiking boots now, will provide you with a very good starting point. The truly serious hiker will probably have several pairs of boots designed to cope with various different forms of hiking but for the beginner one good sound pair of boots will do to start with and, if you buy the right boots, they should last for several years.