The Importance of Protection

I love long walks. I do about 10 km every day with my little Boston Terrier, mostly through the woods. I've always had a problem with debris getting into my boots. With my Salomon Quest 4D GTX, I thought the probelm was solved, since the boots are very high. But no: I still get little stones, dust and other debris into the boots. Since I'm fed up with dirty socks and dirty inside of the boots, I decided to do something about it. I know that in Australia they have this wonderful invention called boot protectors (or boot guards or boot covers). Unfortunately, I cannot get these here in my part of the world, so I used a little bushcraft ingenuity (to put i in an Aussie way) and I made myself a fantastic pair of boot protectors - and the best part is that these little babies are for FREE!

Here's how to make your own boot protectors:
1) Find a pair of old tracksuit pants that has elastic bands around the ankles (I just used a pair of old and torn Fruit of the Loom pants).
2) Cut the ends of the trouser legs off. Make sure to cut enough material off to cover the boot completely.
3) If necessary, insert a new elastic band into the edge with the old elastic band in order to fit the boot protectors snuggly around your legs above the boots.

That's it! Don't worry if you cut the trouser legs off a bit crooked. Mine aren't completely straight either but when the protectors are worn over the boots that won't show anyway. I didn't even bother to sew the bottom edges of the protectors. When they get worn out, I'll just throw them away and make myself new ones :-)

I've tried these out and they work great! Nothing gets into the boots any more and my boots as well as my socks are finally clean :-)