How to care for your hiking boots

My guide for keeping your hiking boots at their very best.

As a ranger, I practically live in outdoor gear, and everything I own gets pretty heavily used and abused through my usual working day. Like my hiking boots, which I wear most days (if it’s not hiking boots, I must be in either wellies or sandals. Roll on summertime!). But I do like to get the best out of my stuff, so that means I also take a bit of time to care for and maintain my gear to make sure it lasts well and keeps performing at the standard I expect it to.

These are my top tips for caring for you hiking boots, ensuring that they don’t end up stinky and awful, and keeping you with happy feet when you head out hiking:

Keep them fresh. Take out your insoles when you take off your boots. Most good quality boots have removable insoles for easy cleaning (and so you can replace with custom orthotics), and these can become warm, sweaty sponges swarming with bacteria. Eventually, they’ll start to smell and it can also degrade the materials of the boot. Let them dry out overnight next to your boots between uses, and they’ll be good to go.

Keep them clean. Mud can ruin the outer material of your boots if it stays on for too long. If the mud has dried, I knock off as much as I can before washing my boots, including digging out muck from the cleats on the sole. I rinse off as much as I can under a tap or hose, and have an old dish scrubbing brush to get the last of the mud off.

Dry carefully. It can be tempting to just drop your boots by the radiator or in front of the fire, but too much direct heat can crack leather and even melt the sole. Instead, let them dry in a warm and airy place, like a drying room, airing cupboard, or even outside in the sun.  Leaving the fire free for you to lounge around in front of.

Deal with soggy boots. Sometimes you just get completely saturated, whether it’s from ridiculously heavy rain or wading through a bog (or both. Hello, Glen Quoich!), and they’ll need to be dealt with before you store your boots. Take out the insoles, and rinse out the inside, giving stubborn dirt a light scrub.   Give your insoles a good scrub with soap, working it into the material with your fingers, and rinse well. Stuff the boots with newspaper, and leave to dry in a well-ventilated area. You might need to replace the paper several times. Sprinkling a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda into each nearly-dry boot will kill the stink before it starts.

Keep them waterproofed. Repeated immersion in mud and water starts to ruin the waterproofing on your boots, whether they’re leather or synthetic, so you’ll need to reapply a waterproof treatment occasionally. Nikwax Fabric and Leather Proof is my usual choice, as I can treat my leather boots and synthetic trail running shoes with the same product. It doesn’t need much, just a thin layer will do the trick.  I’ll also use dubbin or wax on my leather boots regularly to keep the outers supple and comfortable for walking in.

Avoid seawater. Getting your boots wet at the beach can start metal grommets and hooks rusting, and saltwater isn’t great for the condition of leather either. Rinse your boots in freshwater as soon as you can, and dry them as described above. Giving the metalwork an occasional spray of WD40 will also help if you visit the shore regularly.

Do you have any tips to add? Let me know in the comments below.

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