solotripper wrote on Mar 12^th, 2007 at 9:08pm:

Something, you may or may not know?? WHEN people talk about ankle support, what there really telling you is they have WEAKNESS" in there supporting muscles around the foot area.

Hey.  That's good to know.  Here I thought it was the result of broken bones (helicoptered one ankle skiing in the rockies), ankle sprains that turned blue to my knee (that happens when you play basketball and you go up for a rebound and the first thing that contacts the floor on the way down is your knee) and strained ligaments that didn't return "home" after the injury healed (that popping sound you hear when I walk is one of those).

OS -

You may still loose traction, even with Chota Mukluks.  (One of my recent ankle sprains was when wearing the Nunavut II models and stepped up on a wet granite rock with a canoe over my head.  That one was on Keats Lake headed to PP.  That one only turned blue to about mid-calf, but I had a wonderfully diverse set of colors from one toe to the next.)  But that aside, I'm still wearing them for spring trips where I'm not interested in wet footing.  I do wear elastic ankle supports on both ankles when wearing the boots.  The pattern is sock liner (usually UltraMax), ankle support, cushion (wool) sock, then boot, then snug up with the lacing system.  They may seem a bit loose still, but you'll be able to pull your foot up with the boot still on when in boot sucking mud over the top of the boot.  (My boots also have a cinch at the top to minimize the amount of water that gets down inside from the top.  I've had them submerged more than once and the result was just damp socks.)

For warmer weather, I wear something called Play Boots from Patagonia.  I'm not sure they are still in production, but db and tripper turned me on to them a couple of years ago and they work well--good traction and drainage.  However, if you suffer from "tender feet" you may want to add some padding in the foot bed ... you know what you are stepping on.

dd