In summer, I wear sandals almost exclusively for general walking, semi-serious hiking and fishing, a point that annoys a good friend, Tom Seymour of Waldo. I've mentioned this before here, but the sandal trend has increased rapidly in the last few years, leaving the naysayers behind.

Tom's too polite to confront me about my footwear, but in winter when I have boots on my feet, he has complained about other people wearing sandals for outdoors use -- an indirect way to disapprove politely about my shoe choice in the warmer seasons.

The first time he made a comment about sandals, I pointed out the obvious. Sandals were once traditional outdoors wear, which made his eyes sort of bug out and his mouth drop open.

After Tom got his thoughts together, which took two or three seconds, he asked with genuine curiosity, "What are you talkin' about?"

I explained that when Christ wandered in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, he wasn't wearing Chippewa boots. As a novelist might write, Tom's gears started grinding right away.

After thinking about it for several moments, Seymour, a very religious man, said, "Christ would have worn Chippewas if he had 'em."

I'm not so sure. The joy of sandals begins and ends with feet not sweating because of the free flow of air. Boots can really stink feet up on a hot summer day, and perhaps for that reason, outdoors types in the last two decades have begun to choose sandals in a big way.

L.L. Bean recently introduced a wonderful new product for hikers, kayakers and so forth and calls it "Explorer Sandals." Bean constructs them from a leather designed for getting wet without harming the material, and the soles have drainage ports, covered with a fine mesh to keep sand out.

Interestingly, this Freeport company doesn't talk about the mesh in the catalogs. Customers must hold the sandal over their heads against the light to eyeball this feature.

A month ago, I tried on a pair of Explorer Sandals at the flagship store in Freeport and bought a pair on the spot -- $59. They're unbelievably comfortable, influencing the sale on the spot. I've worn nothing else since.

Not to be outdone, Orvis in Vermont has introduced a similar product and named it "D.H.S. Trask Fisherman's Sandal" and priced it at $139. Yeah, $139! They do look mighty elegant, though.

Naturally, though, sandals can get an outdoorsman in trouble. For instance, a few years ago, I was fishing the Sheepscot River beside the rearing station in Palermo and stepped into a soft, sandy ant mound.

I was immediately hopping around like a chimpanzee, slapping at my right foot and ankle, all covered with biting ants. It took a lot of slapping and rubbing to rid myself of these tenacious critters.

About that same year, again fishing the Sheepscot by the rearing station, I stupidly walked into a carpet of poison ivy while wearing Tevas -- and didn't get a skin irritation.

Two precautions might have saved me, and "might" is the key word:

* I immediately removed the sandals and cleaned my feet, ankles and hand with river water and fine gravel, scrubbing the exposed skin to rid it of poison-ivy oil that causes the rash.

* I then thoroughly rubbed my feet and ankles with orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) leaves, allegedly an antidote to poison ivy because of a chemical in its leaves.

Later, I carried the sandals back to my truck with a stick and cleaned them in a washing machine at home to get poison-ivy oil off them.

With 20-20 hindsight, I should have cleaned my skin with jewelweed without water and gravel to determine if these leaves really work by themselves to thwart poison ivy.

(Allegedly, one out of every 10 of us doesn't get poison ivy, but I'm not one of them. I've had it three or four times in life.)

Everyone knows poison ivy, but jewelweed is also a good plant to learn, particularly if someone follows this latest outdoors footwear fad.

The most amateur naturalist cannot miss orange jewelweed with its intriguing, 1-inch, golden-orange blossom splotched with reddish-brown. This flower looks like a small cornucopia with a curly tail, and it hangs horizontally to the ground with the stem attached to the side rather than to the bottom of the blossom -- really untypical and odd-looking for sure.

The ovate leaves also catch the eye big time, too, particularly when rain or dew cover them. The water beads up and each pellucid drop looks like a diamond, instigating the name "jewelweed."

The bottom of the leaf has a pale-green hue, and the stems look succulent and transparent.

If folks decide to start walking any distance with sandals, it takes the foot a little breaking in. An incident firmly established this lesson a few winters ago.

Jolie, my intrepid companion, and I went to Key West in March, and while wearing sandals the first day, I walked miles across several Keys, including Key West and Pine and Marathon keys. My tender, winter feet couldn't take it and blisters formed everywhere the strap touched skin. In short, hiking in sandals requires short jaunts before making longer hikes.

I suspect that sandals for outdoors types will increase in popularity, given the comfort of this footwear along with the incredible array of products swamping the market these days. Those two I mentioned are just two of myriad choices this year.

This is yet another example of how the Maine outdoors has changed in my lifetime, and this is one development no one could have predicted 35 years ago.

 

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer.