I absolutely hate Nike. I love the shoes, but they have made getting new shoes the most impossibly frustrating and at this point, heartbreaking experience for me on this trail. Possibly my single most difficult challenge of the entire PCT has been getting properly fitting shoes.
To explain my shoe saga in more detail, let me describe all 11 pairs of shoes that have been involved with my PCT journey so far.
#1: Nike Pegasus trail shoes size 7.5 – these are the shoes I trained in for a few months prior to the PCT and were already a bigger size than my normal shoe size of 6.5/7. They were super comfortable and I loved them. They had about 300 miles on them when I began the PCT and I was planning on swapping them out at mile 100.
#2: Nike Pegasus trail shoes size 7.5 – these were a replacement for pair #1 that I mailed to Warner Springs ahead of leaving. However, before getting to Warner Springs, my feet were already growing so by the time I got to Warner Springs, they were too small, and went straight into the hiker box, unused.
#3: Nike Pegasus trail shoes size 8 – before I got to Warner springs, I ordered a size 8 shoe as my feet were swelling and growing. I have high arches that have been flattening and my feet started growing. I sent these shoes also to Warner Springs and ended up wearing these shoes instead of shoe pair #2.
#4: Nike Pegasus trail shoes custom wide size 8 – I custom ordered these shoes shortly after Warner Springs figuring I would need a wider shoe. In my naivety, I thought my feet weren’t going to go up much more than 1.5 sizes. I was so wrong. The wide size of Nike Pegasus trail shoes is only available if you custom design a pair of shoes which takes a month to be delivered, and Nike doesn’t offer an expedited service. These were shipped to my house and by the time they arrived, I told my brother to just return them as my feet had kept growing.
#5: Merrell Moab size 7.5 boots – I had decided to mail myself these shoes for San Jacinto because I thought there would be more snow and I had prepped for the PCT in them hiking in microspikes and doing self arrest training in these boots in the snow. But by the time they arrived to me at Paradise Valley Cafe, they were too small and they went straight into the hiker box.
#6: Pink Crocs size 7 – I mailed myself Crocs to Cabazon after being jealous of everyone else’s camp shoes. By the time I was hiking through Mission Creek, my size 8 Nikes (shoe pair #3) were already growing too small and I had to cut a hole in the shoes for my swollen feet. I hiked through half of Mission Creek in my Crocs.
#7: Nike Pegasus trail shoes size 8.5 – I ordered a women’s size 8.5 shoe to Big Bear from Amazon while in Cabazon after the Nike Factory store immediately next to our hotel didn’t have any Nike Pegasus shoes. I hoped I could make it to Big Bear in my size 8 shoes but I didn’t have much other choice otherwise. I ended up hiking in my Crocs desperately waiting to get these shoes at Big Bear and finally feel some relief. They sent me a size 7. I ordered a size 8.5 women’s which is a men’s size 7 but they sent a woman’s size 7. Fucking Amazon. This was such a completely devastating moment which led to pair #8. These shoes were also the biggest pain in the ass to return, requiring a bus ride across town to UPS location #2 that would finally return them. Amazon refunded me $1.42 instead of the $142 I was owed.
#8: Topos Ultraventure 3 size 9 – I didn’t have time to reorder new shoes and wait around for Amazon to maybe send the right item this time so I went to Big Bear Sporting Goods where I purchased some Topos as a last resort. They were wide enough that my toes fit, but have a 5mm drop which is half of what my Nikes were. As I have explained previously, I need a high heel drop, which most hiking shoes don’t provide. I decided to make these work by buying extra foam inserts that I cut to fit, but they caused so many issues for me on the 100 mile stretch to Wrightwood – even with the foam, I developed new knee, hip and shin pain I didn’t have with my Nikes. These were not working out and there was no way I could hike another section in them.
#9: Nike Pegasus trail custom wide size 9 – After 100 miles in a size 9 shoe, my feet finally seemed to have stopped growing. I decided to order a new pair of custom wide trail shoes in a size 9. These won’t be delivered until May 27 which again is not ideal at all, but these shoes have worked for me with the exception of being too small.
#10: Nike Pegasus running shoe wide size 9 – A few days prior to getting to Wrightwood I decided to Google “wide Pegasus shoes” just in case someone was selling them on eBay or something like that. I discovered that the running version of the shoe came in a wide size without requiring a custom order. OMG!!!!! I don’t care. I just hiked through Mission Creek in fucking Crocs, a running shoe is still an improvement even if it doesn’t have the same tread as a trail shoe. I asked the Airbnb host if I could have a package delivered to the house and he told me that was fine but warned me that USPS doesn’t deliver to each house in Wrightwood, but UPS does. I asked Nike which service they ship with but they couldn’t tell me and had no way to find out unless I ordered the shoes. Ugh. I decided to send them to the post office general delivery and hope for the best. The day they were supposed to be delivered, it said the package was delayed. I contacted Nike to find out which service they had actually used to ship and they said it was just “OnTrac”. I contacted OnTrac to find out if the package would definitely be delivered before 5pm when the post office closed. They couldn’t tell me. I asked if I could change the delivery address to the Airbnb in case they were delivered after 5pm and they said Nike had to approve the change. Nike told me they couldn’t do that. Or rather, wouldn’t. It was literally just making a phone call, but they couldn’t possibly do that. I was talking to both companies at the same time and neither was helping. I was not confident that these shoes would actually arrive in time for me to get them before I needed to get back to the trail on Sunday and neither Nike or OnTrac could assure me of anything or were willing to help at all. I told the customer service rep at Nike, “I’m literally begging you to help me”. I got a copy and paste response saying that there was nothing they could do. This was devastating, frustrating and became the very first time I cried on the PCT. 374 miles into the PCT and I finally cried because of shitty customer service. Not the snow, the pain, the weather, etc – I cried because of a customer service agent.
#11: Nike Pegasus running shoe wide size 9 – There was ONE pair of the same running shoe within 100 miles of Wrightwood at Dicks Sporting Goods in West Covina, California. It was 4 hours there by public transit. At this point I was desperate, crying and angry, but I would get those shoes one way or another. I called the store to ask if they definitely had them but the girl who answered told me to order them online for store pickup and if they were in stock, I’d get an email within 30 minutes. Uh ok. I ordered them because if I never picked them up I’d get a refund. No loss. I posted in the Wrightwood trail angel Facebook group saying that I realized it was a long shot but if anyone could drive me to West Covina I’d happily pay for gas. A man named Richard responded that he lived in West Covina and was coming to Wrightwood this weekend and could pick them up for me. They are called trail angels for a reason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will hopefully get my new shoes from Richard tomorrow and my feet will hopefully be done growing, and then my custom size 9 trail shoes will hopefully also work out. Hope is a dangerous thing, but I don’t care. It’s what I have right now.
Brie and El joined our Airbnb for the next 2 nights and Brie told me that she didn’t know how I kept hiking in Crocs or how I kept going trying to find all these solutions. I guess it didn’t occur to me to do anything else. It never occurred to me to turn around, or to leave the trail. Those weren’t options. It was funny hearing someone else say that. I felt like an imposter hiking in Crocs, hiking some of those sections. I wasn’t a real backpacker. But if real backpackers were impressed by that, I must be a real backpacker too.
We sat in the living room talking about how every single thing on the trail is hard, and everything in town is hard and stressful. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Everything is harder here. Everything is challenging. Getting shoes is hard and challenging. But if all of this was easy, I wouldn’t want to be here. I signed up for hard. I signed up for challenging. I’m just getting everything I wanted.
If you are enjoying this blog you can subscribe here to get email updates! If you are really enjoying the blog, please buy me a coffee and help me on my PCT journey! ☀️
