Putting Mountain Climbing Shoes on, not for Mountain Climbing but for working in my Field.

The shoes in the photo are my second mountain climbing shoes. I bought the first one when I was a fourth-year student of a university. I had climbed many mountains with that first shoes. Those mountains were not high-altitude ones. Since I always went to a mountain alone, I just climbed low mountains only for safety.

I don’t remember when it was exactly, but in the past, probably in early two thousand, many Japanese mountain climbers got the accidents in which the sole got apart from the shoes. It was recommended to mountain climbers carrying wire in order to fix the sole just in case of such accident.

One day, I got that accident. The sole of my climbing shoe came off in front, and barely hung at the heel. I took the shoes to a shop that was selling goods for mountain climbing. I wanted to ask the shop to repair my shoes. But the shop simply rejected to repair. So, I bought the new shoes that is shown in the photo.

I came back to my hometown ten years ago with my second mountain climbing shoes. Actually, there are a lot of good mountains to climb in Niigata area. But I haven’t climbed any single mountain in the past ten years, and probably will not climb in the near future because of the following three reasons.

1: It is dangerous to go to mountains alone, because the mountains in Niigata are usually located in remote area.

2: I usually get aching on my knee while descending on way back. In order for me to avoid knee aching, it takes three times longer hours than others for descending.

3: The third reason is quite scary one; BEARS. In recent years, encountering bears is happening more and more often. Many accidents with bears have occurred also in Niigata Prefecture. According to the record of “Niigata bear appearance map”, bears came three times to the places like 6 kilometers (4 miles) distant from my house. Actually, those places are not mountain. The bears must have crossed rice fields, residential area, even the town of “Gosen”. If you look at the map, it would show you a huge number of witness cases along the foot of the mountains. If I climb a mountain, it is really likely to encounter a bear. This is the biggest reason why I don’t go to a mountain.

Because of these reasons, my second shoes have been left unused for several years. But I started putting those shoes when I came back to my house in July. For what? it is for gardening. These days I work in my field in morning hours for cultivating the soil, growing vegetables, and caring fruits trees. My field is not so wide, but I walk a lot. Since the ankle part of the mountain climbing shoes is stiff in order to prevent sprains, it makes you feel a little hard to walk. But I have got used to it, I even feel that stiff shoes can reduce fatigue on my foot. I can say that both of the mountain trails and the vegetable field have a similarity as being rough to walk.