It’s Saturday morning in the center of any big city. In specialty coffee shops, among flat whites and sourdough bread, an urban army parades equipped to survive a blizzard in the Alps. We talk about fever Gorpcore: waterproof technical jackets and sneakers trail running ultra-reinforced, designed to devour kilometers of rocks, but today they will only step on tiles and asphalt.
However, hundreds of miles from that cafe, on the actual trails where those sneakers should be getting dirty, the exact opposite is happening. We have reached the technological peak of footwear outdoorbut a growing wave of purists, adventurers and elders have decided to take an evolutionary step back: take off their boots and feel the raw earth.
Yes, there are people walking barefoot in the mountains. The image of a barefoot mountaineer ceased to be a rarity for hermits and became a global movement. According to GuardianGen Blades, an Australian researcher, says she was hiking the 147-kilometer Namsan Dulle-gil route in South Korea when the terrain changed to a stretch of wet clay (“hwangto”). Neither quick nor lazy, she took off her shoes. He described the feel of the mud oozing between his fingers as “revitalizing, like a massage.”
You don’t have to go to Asia to find these devotees of the bare foot. In Australia, Dale Noppers, 37, organizes routes of up to seven hours through the Serpentine National Park stepping on mud, gravel and rocks. He confesses that the experience makes him feel “quite primitive” and assures that, despite the risk of stepping on insects or glass, the soles of his feet are so soft that “it looks like they have had a pedicure.” For Uralla Luscombe-Pedro, 32, who has walked hundreds of kilometers along Australia’s wild coast, feet are “sensory organs.” After weeks of walking like this, he claims to feel like a leaner animal and concludes that our modern concrete human habitat is “strangely boring” in comparison.
This is not new, but it has gotten out of control. Europe has been flirting with this idea for decades through the Barfusspark or Barefoot Parks. The German environmental organization NABU documents about 50 of these venues in Germany, with Bad Sobernheim (opened in 1992) being one of the pioneers. An example An example of its magnitude It is the Egestorf parkwhich has almost 3 kilometers and more than 60 stations where visitors step on pine cones, fine sand, spring water and deep mud.
But if in Europe it is a recreational activity, in South Korea It’s real institutional madness.. 68.7% of the country’s 243 local governments have ordinances to encourage barefoot hiking. Seongnam City invested 3.45 billion won (about $2.7 million) to build six red clay courts and budgeted another 3.5 billion won by 2024. The private sector not left behind: The Sun Yang Soju liquor company built a 14.5-kilometer runway and donates $800,000 annually for its maintenance. The obsession is such that roads are being built in greenhouses for use in winter. Unfortunately, overcrowding is already causing ecological havoc, such as the degradation of the ecosystem in wetland marshes such as Sorae in Incheon.
The key question: why? Defenders of this practice divide their arguments into two large blocks: the mechanics of the body and the “magic” of the earth. On the one hand, mechanical advocates point to physical health. Without shoes, the body constantly adjusts, improving coordination and balance. Small forgotten muscles are activated and the 28 bones, 20 muscles and more than 100 tendons of the foot benefit. Furthermore, when going barefoot on uneven ground, we usually abandon landing with the heel and start stepping with the ball of the foot (metatarsus). This reduces the impact, although it requires 53% more energy, turning the walk into an intense workout.
On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of “Earthing”. There are studies that suggest that this direct contact neutralizes free radicals that cause aging, reduces blood viscosity and improves heart rate variability. Attracted by these supposed benefits, patients in Korea claim that the practice has reduced their blood sugar levels, alleviated insomnia and even cured cancer.
Science hits the brakes. Podiatrists applaud the freedom of the foot, but with nuances. Dr. George Murley warns in Guardian that you have to treat this transition “almost like a gym session for your feet” and do it progressively. Alejandro Martínez, expert podiatrist, explains in Men’s Health Magazine that “a healthy foot works best when barefoot.”
However, when faced with miraculous cures, the medical community pulls out its claws. Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale School of Medicine, calls “earthing” pseudoscience that lacks physical sense, denouncing that many of the studies are poorly designed and financed by companies in the sector. Oncologist Ahn Hee-kyung is blunt about the risks: Walking barefoot exposes vulnerable or immunocompromised patients to potentially lethal bacterial infections, such as staphylococcus or tetanus, through small cracks in the skin. As a result, hospitals report an increase in plantar fasciitis and cellulitis from these reckless walks, and many doctors attribute much of the supposed “cures” to a strong placebo effect enhanced by the environment.
The alternative that unites worlds: “Barefoot” footwear. For those seeking tetanus-free biomechanics, the industry has perfected footwear barefoot (or respectful). These are shoes with “zero drop” (no heel), a wide last that does not compress the fingers and an extra-thin sole. Brands like Xero Shoes, leguano, Groundies or Freet dominate the niche, and even Zara has launched its own line.
Its effectiveness in hostile terrain is proven: Traveler Matouš Vinš managed to climb the 5,000 meters of Mount Kenya in Africa with minimalist footwear, overcoming the challenge without problems while his heavy-booted companions suffered from blisters. Likewise, adventurer Viktorka Hlaváčková claims to be faster on demanding terrain thanks to these shoes, and emphasizes that her feet maintain great blood circulation even below zero.
The cushioning paradox. It is revealing that, at a time of greatest hyper-technization in the footwear industry outdoorthe most striking phenomenon is leaving shoes at home. While the asphalt of cities absorbs millions of shoes designed for extreme mountaineering, the real mountain is witnessing a de-escalation driven in equal parts by biomechanics, the minimalist footwear industry and South Korean fervor. In the end, the debate taking place on the trails does not revolve around what new technology will dominate next season, but rather whether the future of mountaineering involves, ironically, touching the ground again.
Image | freepik
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