The North Face Altamesa 500: My One-Shoe Quiver

For almost a year now, I’ve been committing heresy. Enmeshed in an illicit love affair with a pair of North Face Altamesa 500s, I’ve been sinning against the church of modern outdoor gear culture. I’m finally ready to confess to all of it.

I’ve been wearing a single pair of shoes to do essentially every activity I enjoy. I’ve been throwing just one pair of “exercise shoes” in my suitcase and not giving another thought to additional, activity-dependent footwear. Actually, that’s not true. The Altamesas are also my airport shoes, so they rarely even end up in the suitcase.

I’ve worn them running (on trails and sidewalks). I’ve worn them walking. I’ve worn them hiking. I’ve worn them snorkeling on Oahu’s North Shore. I’ve worn them to my adult Irish dance classes, letting them serve as soft shoe ghillies and hard shoes alike. I’ve worn the Altamesas to almost every school drop-off I can think of. In fact, the day I wore a pair of gladiator-style sandals, my new footwear was an actual topic of conversation among the other parents. In short, I’ve discovered an everything shoe, and I’m not going back to a life of specialized footwear.

To be a devotee of the everything shoe, one must accept that they’re likely trading in “peak performance” for the mental ease that comes with zero forethought about what to put on. After all, highly specialized gear exists for a reason. And usually that reason has to do with advanced design or technical features that allow its user to perform better at their chosen activity. I always think of the debut of the sharkskin-inspired swimsuit at the 2000 Olympics as the quintessential example of the role specialized gear can play in performance. In its mimicry of nature’s design, the swimwear allowed athletes to break more records than ever before, and those who wore the new technical suits won the lion’s share of the medals that year. Gear can make all the difference.

But I don’t care about the performance difference it can make in my life.

When I talked to my physical therapist about the dangers of using a single pair of trail running shoes for a variety of activities, his response was straightforward: “You’re not going to get hurt doing that, but wearing a heavier trail shoe for other kinds of running might slow you down a little bit.” Sir, at the speeds I’m moving, I’m not sure anyone—including myself—will notice the speed effect.

We live in a time of unprecedented choice when it comes to what we should buy. As we thrash, caught in the sticky web of late capitalism, looking for escape, targeted ads worm their way straight into the heart of our personal weaknesses, telling us they know not only what our problems and our insecurities are but also exactly how to fix them.

This can lead to wasted money and unnecessary worry, as well as decision fatigue. I am truly so tired of figuring out what to pack, what to wear, what to buy, what will be the holy grail for my appearance and my training. I’m also extremely tired of how much everything costs. With the everything shoe, I’ve given myself the gift of using my limited cognitive resources on some of the other things I care about, like my child, my writing, my spouse, and my hobbies.

In his lowkey legendary 2007 book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, the novelist Haruki Murakami explains his decision to wear Mizunos in marathon training as a simple matter of longstanding preference. “They’re light, and the cushioning of the sole is a little hard,” he writes. “I like the fact that this brand of shoes doesn’t have any extra bells and whistles. That’s my personal preference, nothing more.”

Well, the North Face Altamesa 500 has four-millimeter lugs that let me walk down the damp, mossy Seattle sidewalks without slipping. It offers a lot of cushion without a lot of weight (8.6 ounces per shoe), and my joints feel pretty good after I jog in them. People tend to compliment me on them, and they look cool, in my humble opinion. I really like them.

They’re my personal preference, nothing more.