Going Wild: Our 3rd Annual Hi-Tec Hike

We at Onlineshoes.com always go to great lengths to see how our outdoor shoes do in the real world…by testing them at 1,175 feet up!

After thoroughly forgetting the aches imposed on us from our past two hikes, 35 employees (and one honorary four-legged employee) slipped on our hiking gear and set off once again for Rattlesnake Ridge in Washington’s picturesque Cascade Mountains.

Along with our friends from Hi-Tec and Superfeet, we arrived to find…that summer decided to skip this year in the Pacific Northwest. But while Mother Nature may have called for cool and rainy, nothing could dampen our spirits. We were determined. So we adjusted our Leki hiking poles and hit the trail.

It was, as they say, a hike. And yes, some of us were wondering how the heck we got talked into this “walk in the woods” as we paused to catch our breath and watch 5-year-olds run past us. But then we remembered that we weren’t sitting at our desks soaking up the fluorescent rays from our overhead lights. Nope, we were outdoors, soaking up nature at its finest. Plus, we were wonderfully blister-free thanks to our Injinji toesocks so our feet were still raring to go.

We may have lost one or two along the way due to previous knee injuries acting up (or was it the lure of libations awaiting them back at “base camp”?), but the rest of us powered on, not letting our coworkers be left behind in vain. And while we might have given plenty of thought to our protesting muscles during the one-hour climb, we barely gave a second thought to our feet in our Hi-Tec boots. Which, if you think about it, is exactly how good hiking shoes should be: Navigating the rocky climb perfectly so that we could concentrate on the scenery and good friends around us (plus, the latest office gossip) as we reached our destination.

And what a destination it was. Even the drizzle couldn’t diminish the scenic vistas. It was tranquil, it was picturesque, it was breathtaking…literally breathtaking as we collapsed, catching said breath before our decent. But as we stood there in our Onlineshoes.com outdoor gear basking in our accomplishment, each of us was already planning our next great adventure…bringing along the never-ending foot support of our Superfeet insoles, of course. No reason nature can’t be comfortable.