As I prepare to do some serious climbing work on my tower, footwear is now a
concern. When I erected 127' of Rohn 25G 30 years ago, I used the steel-shank
work boots I had on hand, size 9 1/2 M or 10 M as I recall, without a second
thought. Those are long worn out, so I purchased a new pair of 10 M boots with
steel shank. I used them for several weeks for other outdoor projects and they
are now broken in and very comfortable, but the other day I did some
preliminary climbing and it turns out that the soles of the boots are too wide
for both feet to easily fit on a rung at the same time. I can wiggle my feet
around each step and get both in place on each rung as I go up, but IMO that
isn't a very comfortable or safe way to be climbing a 120' plus tower. The
soles could be about a half-inch narrower with no problem, but they just
weren't made that way.
I set those boots side-by-side and measured the total width of the two soles at
9.5 inches. I measured the width of another pair of work boots I have, same
size - 10M - but no steel shank, at 9.0 inches. It is very easy to climb with
those, but the lack of steel shank in the sole makes it unbearably painful to
stand on a tower rung any longer than a few minutes. I went back to the store
where I bought my new boots, looking for a pair of 9 1/2 M with narrower soles,
but could find only ones without steel shank.
I tried looking on-line, but the descriptions are big on steel toes, but little
mention of steel shank, even with a Google search for "steel shank boots". Most
of the boot stores that claim to carry work boots seem primarily concerned with
fashion statements, like fancy cowboy boots and other footwear, crap that would
be useless for serious "work".
Very frustrating. Never thought finding a pair of suitable work boots for tower
work would be such an ordeal. Since a lot of people use Rohn 25G, there must be
footwear available for comfortably climbing this tower, like there was 30 years
ago. And my feet are probably smaller than average. Can anyone tell me where
they were able to find a satisfactory pair of tower climbing boots?
Don k4kyv
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