[TowerTalk] Tower Climbing Boots

[Donald Chester]

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