Soothing The Agony Of The Feet: New York Cobbler Handcrafts Personal Hiking Boots

ONEIDA, N.Y. - Some of the photos in Gary Barlow's files are a cobbler's nightmare: feet that are gnarled, knobbed, flat, arthritic, mismatched or missing toes.

The owners of these feet don't come to his tiny shop to help them hobble. They seek him out to help them hike. They want to climb rocky mountain trails and trudge through miles of rugged forest terrain.

They want to do it in blissful comfort, to boot.

Barlow is one of only a few craftsmen around the country who make fine leather boots by hand. He designs each hiking boot precisely to fit the person who will wear it.

It can be a lucrative trade. Randy Merrell of Vernal, Utah, who is considered a guru among bootmakers, says the potential market for custom-made hiking boots is enormous.

Fancy Western-style boots sell for up to $4,000 or more, says Merrell, who has trained 340 people at his bootmaking school. The demand is growing for handmade hiking boots, which sell for $500 and up, he says.

For Barlow, 50, bootmaking is a labor of love. "I'm a hiker. I'm an old diehard woodsman," he says. "When you're in the woods, you're in God's country. You feel the living spirit that's there. It renews life for me."

But it's hard to find serenity when your feet hurt.

"I was always frustrated by the hiking boots," Barlow says. "I'd pay $350 for a pair of boots and they'd be clumsy."

People he met on the trails also suffered foot fatigue.

That was 15 years ago. Barlow had been working for 20 years as a roofer, but wanted to be a cobbler. He got a job at a shoe repair shop to learn the trade, then set up shop in Oneida, 25 miles east of Syracuse.

After several years of fixing shoes, Barlow spent $4,000 to study at Merrell's school.

His boot business grew by word of mouth until a year ago, when Barlow put an ad in the magazine of the Adirondack Mountain Club. Don Capron, an avid hiker, bought a pair and was so impressed he wrote an article for the magazine.

"Pictures of my feet have been used in podiatry and orthopedic foot surgery textbooks as examples of the worst possible feet for outdoor activities," Capron wrote under a photo of his gnarled feet. He had seven deformed toes amputated.

Capron's Barlow boots fit perfectly, allowing him to hike 12 miles painlessly the day he got them.

"His finished boots fit my feet like extensions of my legs," wrote Capron, who, with his new boots, hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1996.

"Since that article came out everybody with bad feet's been calling me," Barlow says.

Barlow makes three boot styles: a light, flexible hiking boot; a stiffer backpacking boot; and a "mountain stomping boot" for week-long treks with a 70-pound pack.

When he makes a pair of boots, Barlow begins with a fitting appointment with the customer. He finds out what sort of hiking the customer does and makes a plastic model.

He takes a half-dozen photos of the client's bare feet. He makes imprints in ink that reveal the contours of the sole and measures at least five places on the foot.

From the data he gathers, Barlow re-creates each foot by building onto a standard last. From the last, Barlow makes a plastic fitting boot, and then a paper pattern. He cuts the upper from latigo leather, a waxy, durable leather also used in saddlemaking. For the lining, he prefers elk.

"I don't think $400 for my boot is high," Barlow says, considering the $200 cost of the materials and the many hours that go into fitting, design and construction.

"I want to do something for people," Barlow says. "It feels good to know I can build something for somebody that enhances their enjoyment of our natural surroundings."