Beautiful spring day, so I loaded up my pack and went for a dayhike along the North Branch River in southern Minnesota's Blufflands near the burg of Elba.

There is no man-made trail there, so I followed a deer path for a few miles, combing the hillsides for the beautiful spring ephemerals that color the river bottoms and bluffland forests for a day or two each year. Every once in a while I came down off the game trail and explored a gravel bar looking for interesting mineral specimens.

My pack was a little heavy, as it contained all of the 'necessities' and a few extras, including a nice meal of wild rice and salmon just waiting to be cooked on my Trangia stove at one of the sand bars. There would be Constant Comment tea with Kit Organic berry nut bars for dessert.

I'm posting a few pictures that I took with my cell phone. The pictures are not very good, but I keep using the phone as a camera anyway. I figure it is my excuse for being a crappy photographer.

Take a look at the picture of my boots. These are older but high-end Clark Treks. The uppers and insoles were in perfect condition, and the soles have minimal wear.

As I was heading back in and walking along through the forest, I thought I stepped on something. I looked down, and the sole of my right boot had stripped off. I was still a mile out! I had some duct tape in my pack, but elected to just keep walking with one bad boot. A quarter mile later, the other sole stripped off. What are the odds of that happening?

I finished my dayhike with two sole-less boots. Fortunately, I had a spare set of boots in my car.

Thank you for sharing. Crappy pictures are sooo much better then no pictures at all!!

Do you recall what brand your boots are (were)?

I believe this is reasonably common with the current technology of glued boot construction. It has happened to me as well. Duct tape saved the day (I was about five miles out).

Perhaps you should eat more sole food....

I have had this happen with a pair of cheap tennis shoes where both soles came off within a short period of time of each other.

I have found that super glue does a reasonably credible job of gluing the soles back on and has the side benefit of being usable in the wild. However, it took a whole tube to glue on one sole and even then the coverage was limited.

http://ilbob.blogspot.com/2011/09/walmaret-sneaker-fail.html

I was hiking in Death Valley and the same thing happened to my friend. BOTH soles came off within 1/2 a mile. Crazy.

Don't think I'd carry this when hiking but this stuff works really well. I've reglued the soles on some Trask mocassins and they have stayed glued. Also good for repairing thin spots on the soles of shoes. Good stuff.

I've used Shoe Goo on a few pairs of shoes as well, it works very well.