Gather around all for Uncle Eric's Story time...
So it all starts with the fact that I leave for Aconcagua in four days...
This is my first seven summit, I am going with one other. We are experienced hikers but only my friend has been to that altitude (Kilimanjaro). We are going unguided on the polish traverse route. So I have spoke to many, read a lot of books, and organized all the planning and gear. We had planned to hike the mountain with La Sportiva Nepal Evo boots.... Why not, after all they were very warm on mt washington.... and reviews said they should be ok...
Well thankfully bradmarshall spoke up and said it was a bad idea and they would not be warm enough... we were stubborn and already had the boots for a year.. so we bought insulated super gaiters ... $150 a pair. We assumed we would be all good to go now... wrong.
In between last minute questions last night for that damn brad he really stressed that the boots would not be good.. this got me worried.. so i read more and more... contacted a few guide companies... and sure enough the overall vote was no... so this brings us to last night...
Now here i am sitting at the table at 6pm wondering what the hell am i going to do.. so i go to the internet looking for some spantiks or buruntse... i found them but after talking to reps realized that the buruntse's which was what i needed... needed to be heat formed.. so where is the closest ones to me... Keene Valley which is near lake placid... This was 300 miles from me!!!!
So I called a friend and invited him for a beer.. when he got here I told him to get in the car we were going to the Dacks... He shockingly jumped right in and was siked, as we all are to go to the dacks for the hell of it. We departed at 11pm last night... arrived in keene valley at 0430 in the morning... slept for a few hours in the parking lot.. got up and walked into the now open store at 0800.
And now I have my boots and am home and happy... Nothing like a spur of the moment trip to the dacks to buy $600 boots three days before I leave for Aconcagua.
The boots: VERY COMFORTABLE!!! Well worth the money, playing with them now.
Ok story over.