I recently ordered some Five-Ten Insight shoes. I wore them around the house and they seemed to fit perfectly. I then wore them on two climbs averaging 5000 vertical feet and experienced unignorable pain in my toes on descent. The shoes are one size too small. My last pair was 9.5 (and they never hurt my feet) and these are 9.0. It is too late to return them. Suggestions?

Awaiting better answers one generic way to stretch shoes is to put a bag of water in them then put them in the freezer. The ice takes up a greater volume and hey presto. No idea what that would do to the rubber or whatnot though.

you can't return them, just put them up here or on craigslist and sell them for ~30$ cheaper than you bought them for, you'll learn to make sure that your shoes fit. I might go all the way up to a 10. my light hikers are size 15, and I usally wear 14's. if you don't size them big your feet will hurt like hell on descents.

What kind of terrain were you descending? Do you mean that your feet got swollen and painful after a long day even though the descent was just a series of rappels, or were you trying to hike in your climbing shoes? If they only hurt when you're hiking downhill, consider bringing a pair of more comfortable shoes just for descent. If they hurt whenever you wear them for several hours, then definitely get larger climbing shoes.

nartreb wrote:What kind of terrain were you descending? Do you mean that your feet got swollen and painful after a long day even though the descent was just a series of rappels, or were you trying to hike in your climbing shoes? If they only hurt when you're hiking downhill, consider bringing a pair of more comfortable shoes just for descent. If they hurt whenever you wear them for several hours, then definitely get larger climbing shoes.

just to clarify, the insights are approach shoes not rock shoes.
May I ask why the OP bought shoes a half size smaller in the first place?

To answer some questions:
(1) They are hiking shoes that I have used for hiking (Mt. Russell and Mt. Baldy in CA).
(2) They impact my big toes after hiking 2000+ feet downhill.
(3) I ordered 9.0 instead of 9.5 by accident, but they seemed to fit fine.

Thanks for the responses thus far!