Just a word or three before the pictures: wtf?!
(I'm not complaining... I'm just confused!)
Tent stake to show the extent of the damage
See?
??!The Boots: Columbia Bugazips, obtained for a mere $3 at a yard sale last year in near-unused condition
The Conditions: High of 32F, Nighttime low of 26F, steady snow throughout while camping out:
- in Fort Collins
- in a decent snowstorm
- in a Chikfila parking lot
- for ~13.5 hours
- for free food!
The Crazy: The boots stayed outside of the tent, but out of the weather, for about 6 hours last night. They were awesome and toasty with no apparent structural compromise until I got back to Englewood and went in and out of several stores. At some point, I realized that my heel was bothering me & so I looked down at my shoes to discover that the left heel had cracked completely around. Keep walking around, finish my errand, walk out of the store, hear some crackling, look down... right toebox full of spiderweb cracks! Was I supposed to pretreat these things or were they just defective?
Jer looked at reviews of similar Columbia boots & found that several people had posted the same problem. Apparently the boots only have a 1 year warranty anyway, so it's probably not worth even asking since I got them secondhand more than a year ago.
No complaints from me... I definitely got $3 of wear out of them. It will just be a cold month or two for my toes if this weather keeps up. I'm eying some sweet boots for Christmas though... :-)
