| Climbing - Caving - About - Links - Register - Log in |
|
|
|
|
Summer's here in the northern hemisphere, and so, along with the usual requests for a glimpse at his secret list of shady crags, Dr Stone's mailbox has been full of cries for help with the 'stinkboot' problem. Recent research has highlighted the crisis as investigators have found that climbers develop an olfactory 'blind spot' to their own particularly rotten foot induced boot vapours whilst at the same time they can become hyper-sensitized to those of others. The result has been a tragic rash of celebrity climber 'divorces' as partnerships go into battle over whose boots are turning the tent, car, or private jet they are sharing into a 'dog's arse'.
Dr Stone brings a lifetime of experience to this issue, and is happy to report that a solution does indeed exist. however, as good old George Santayana (a non-climber unrelated to Carlos Santana) used to say - "he who forgets the past will be condemned to relive the smell of it". Accordingly, we'll begin with a little history.
Younger readers will be shocked to learn that at one time *socks* were thought to be the answer to stinkboot. These were normally worn inside the boot so that they captured the odours. After a decent period the socks were taken off the foot (or fell off) and either washed or burnt. In the seventies and early eighties (the golden age of disco) climbing's fashion police enforced a strict red or white sock policy almost universally, although a breakaway group of Franco-German limestoners rebelled and paraded in yellow knee-highs. That the sock era was a sorry episode in the history of climbing is demonstrated by Ben Moon's recent attempts to buy back all the prints of his first ascent of Statement of Youth, which show him sporting a pair of long white cotton-nylon mix socks with red and blue hoops.
 |
| The Doctor scanning his assisten before going in to cure a victim of the dreaded Stinkhand |
It goes without saying the twenty-first century climber knows instinctively that sock wearing is unacceptable on ethical grounds alone. However, there are also sound medical reasons for excluding socks from our sport. Used socks often found their way to the bottom of rucksack where they would hide and fester beneath a furry 13mm abseil rope. Forgetful climbers, extracting the rope for a foray down Red Walls late in the season as the bird ban lifted, would spot the socks and reach down and *touch* them with unprotected skin. The (by now) mutant bacteria would storm onto the climber's fingers and cause incurable 'stinkhand', an even more serious condition than stinkboot and beyond the scope of this article. Most of us old timers have lost a friend or a dear one to dreaded stinkhand.
Step forward Asolo. Recognizing the problem in the mid-eighties Asolo's designers came up with the Runout, a brilliant all-round shoe which decomposed and fell apart more rapidly than foot bacteria could reproduce. Dr Stone knows of a climbing sales rep who bought up 40 pairs of original Runouts in 1989, thiking that they would see him into old age and retirement. Sadly, the last pair failed even to see in the Labour victory of '97, when the rep was only 44 years old.
The late eighties were also a time when credulous humanity still believed in technological solutions to problems: detergents on oil slicks, channel tunnels, hand-placed pegs etc. The chemical industry saw a market opportunity and introduced shoe deodorant sprays. Anxious climbers, fearful of losing friends and/or lovers, rushed out and bought these crimes against the ecosystem. Even Dr Stone stooped low and purchased a pastel blue can of global-warming, planet-wrecking boot spray from his arch rival Dr Scholl. Needless to say, Mr Bacteria was more than a match for the technocrats. A crack team of podophulis hyperscrophulus were sent into Dupont's labs where they made off with the secret formula to the active ingredients of shoe deodorant. Back at Bacteria Central they ran it over a few million generations and came back fighting. "That which does not kill me makes me strong" as Allan Austin used to say at Almscliff. P. hyperscrophulus is now able to turn those active ingredients into something odorous beyond belief, leading to rare and sometimes fatal cases of 'ultra necrotizing stinkboot'. Dr Stone knows of one poor fool returning from a trip to Yosemite, whose Lysol sprayed Anasazis triggered the anti-terrorist sensors in the cargo hold of his 747, causing an unscheduled touchdown in Iceland.
 |
| A pair of FiveTen's from the freezer |
So how do climbers fight stinkboot? the good doctor promised at the outset a solution exists, and so it does, but care must be taken not to "cure the disease but kill the patient" as my genito-urinary physician used to say. First, take your boots and soak them in clean fresh water (vodka will do in a pinch) which you have made alkaline with a dash of sodium bicarbonate (like climbers, bacteria prefer acid). Then place the boots in a ziplock plastic bag (that bit is important) and place them in your freezer compartment for a few hours (climbers on the road: use the frozen veg display in a handy supermarket). This doesn't kill all the bacteria, but it slows them up and makes them drowsy. Whip the boots out and dry them over a radiator, in the sun, or (best) in a microwave oven. And you're done.
But beware! Recently, Dr Stone returned home from a hot and sweaty session down in the fragrant jungles of Chee Tor and realised something was 'afoot' when the dogs, instead of greeting him with delighted yelps and paw stabs to the groin, retreated to a corner and cowered, whimpering softly, and covering their noses. I applied the treatment to the offending booties (a pair of Anasazis foolishly sprayed with Lysol after a trip to Yosemite) and left them in the freezer overnight. Wanting the boots pronto next morning I put them into the microwave. Enter Mrs Stone. Still sleepy, she placed her cooled down wake-up coffee in the microwave without looking inside. By the processes of what Irish savant Flann O'Brien calls "the Atomic Theory", the stinkboot molecules swiftly swapped places with the coffee flavour molecules. For my part, I am not unhappy with the result - dark continental roast flavour boots. However, Mrs Stone, who took a large swig of her 'coffee', was not so impressed, and relations have become somewhat frosty, to the extent that I fear we may become yet another of those celebrity divorces. Readers, please keep your thoughts and hopes with us.
|
© Willerup Brothers 2000-2008
Questions, comments? feedback@adventurehut.com |
