Caring For Your Feet – Tips and Products To Use
At Mountain Trek, guided hikes are a part of our daily schedule. When we are so used to being seated for most of our days, our feet can take a beating when it’s time to hit the trail. Long distances require some care for the feet, especially if the feet are kept prisoner in city shoes for the week. So we want to share a couple of our favorite products with you.
Foot Care Tips for Hiking and Walking
Friar’s Balsam
The first product is Friar’s Balsam or Tincture of Benzoin. It is a brown liquid that you dip a Q-tip into and paint on the heel of your foot as an anchor to put bandages on. You can get this at any pharmacy.
Mefix Tape
The second product is a tape called Mefix. This is a slippery thin tape that takes barely any room in your shoe. We cut this tape to a 2 ½ inch length, round the corners so your sock doesn’t peel it off, and we stick that from the sole of your foot over your heel bone, working up the Achilles, and that picks up the friction that occurs as your foot goes up and down.
Molefoam
Molefoam is a fuzzy foam pad that protects from pressure in our shoes. We cut little donuts out of that and place it over bone spurs, bunions, callus points, any place you’re worried about the pressure that you normally feel in any shoe. You would cut a little rectangle piece out of it, flip it over, cut a half-circle, round the corners, and voila, you have a little donut.
Pedicure
Remember to cut your toenails back, because if they’re too long and they slide at the end of your shoe, they’re going to hammer and you’re going to lose a nail. Make sure that the corners are filed so that your toes fit in your shoe, when they’re continually moving for balance, don’t dig in and scrape each other.
Lamb’s Wool
To that point, I also want to talk about another product, which is Lamb’s Wool. You may have used this with Mountain Trek before. We take this product for some of you that get blisters because your toes are overworking for balance, and we weave this in between the toes so the toes have something that picks up the friction and doesn’t allow moisture from sweat to cause the skin to get soft and rub and peel off. So that’s something you can also pick up at the pharmacy.
All the best to you, and happy trails and enjoy the sun as spring starts to come forward.
What is Mountain Trek?
Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:
