How to Clean Hiking Boots

The ten-minute routine

1. Let heavy mud dry, then knock it off. Caked wet mud smears into the upper; dry mud comes off in flakes. Bang the soles together outdoors and brush the rest away with a dry brush.

2. Take out the laces and the insoles. Both hold dirt and both dry far faster separately. Laces can go through a wash; insoles get rinsed and air-dried flat.

3. Wash the upper with lukewarm water and a boot cleaner. A soft brush or a cloth, working with the grain on leather and the nap on suede. Avoid laundry detergent: it strips oils out of leather and leaves surfactant residue that attracts water rather than repelling it, which is the opposite of what you want before reproofing.

4. Clear the outsole. A stiff brush and a blunt stick for the lug gaps. This is not vanity - packed mud in a 5 mm lug pattern turns a grippy outsole into a flat one, which is exactly the surface you were trying to avoid. The same logic sits behind best hiking boots for mud.

5. Rinse and check the seams. Rinse the cleaner off properly, and while the boot is wet look at the rand, the toe seam and the forefoot flex crease. Cracks and lifting show up most clearly on a wet boot.

6. Dry at room temperature. Insoles out, newspaper in, away from radiators and fires. Then, if water has stopped beading on the upper, reproof - the method is in how to waterproof hiking boots, and it only works on a clean boot, which is why cleaning comes first.

Why dirt actually damages boots

There are three separate mechanisms, and none of them is about appearance. Dried mud is hygroscopic - it pulls moisture out of whatever it is sitting on, and on a leather upper that means the leather dries, stiffens and eventually cracks at the flex points. Grit trapped in seams and under the tongue acts as an abrasive every time the boot bends, which is why uppers fail at the crease rather than in the middle of a panel. And a layer of dirt sits between the upper and any treatment you apply, so a boot you wax without cleaning gets a sealed-in layer of mud and no DWR.

There is a performance consequence too. GORE-TEX's own care guidance is built around keeping footwear clean, because contamination on the face fabric is what makes a membrane boot wet out and feel clammy. So cleaning is not maintenance you do instead of the interesting stuff; on a membrane boot it is the waterproofing maintenance.

Leather, suede and mesh want different treatment

Full-grain leather - the Danner Mountain 600 Evo, the Zamberlan 996 Vioz - is the most forgiving to clean and the most punished by neglect. Water and a soft brush, then a cream or wax once dry. Condition only when the leather looks dry or chalky; routine heavy conditioning softens leather and a supportive boot loses some of the stiffness you paid for.

Suede and nubuck - the Merrell Moab's pig suede, the Danner Trail 2650 - mark easily and must not be waxed. Use a suede brush to lift the nap, a nubuck-specific cleaner for stains, and a nubuck spray afterwards. Do not soak nubuck if you can avoid it; blot rather than scrub.

Mesh and textile - most trail shoes, the adidas Terrex uppers, the Altra Lone Peak line - are the easiest to clean and the quickest to lose their DWR. Rinse thoroughly, because mesh holds cleaner residue, and expect to re-spray more often than you would wax leather. Trail shoes also collect grit under the sockliner far more than boots do, which is worth a rinse of the insole every few hikes - grit under the arch is a real blister cause, as covered in how to prevent blisters hiking.

Drying: the step that ruins the most boots

More boots are destroyed by drying than by hiking. Heat does three things to a boot and all of them are permanent: it shrinks and cracks leather, it can soften or delaminate the adhesives holding the sole unit to the upper, and on a membrane boot it can damage the laminate. Radiators, wood stoves, car heaters, hair dryers and direct sun are all the same mistake at different speeds.

The method that works is dull and effective: insoles out, laces loosened, boot stuffed with newspaper changed once or twice, in a room with moving air. A boot fan or a shoe dryer that blows unheated air is fine. Expect 24 hours for a soaked leather boot and much less for mesh. If you need them dry by morning on a trip, the field version of this - and what to do if they are still wet - is in how to keep feet dry hiking.

The smell, and what actually works

Boot odour is bacterial, and bacteria need moisture, so almost everything that works is really a way of drying the boot faster. Take the insoles out after every hike - that one habit does more than any spray, because a sweat-saturated foam insole sitting inside a closed boot is the whole problem. Rinse the insoles, dry them flat, and replace them when they stop springing back; an insole is a wear item, not a permanent part of the boot, and the options are in best insoles for hiking boots.

Beyond that: rotate two pairs of socks on multi-day trips so one dries while you wear the other, and choose socks that manage moisture rather than hold it - best hiking socks for sweaty feet ranks for exactly this. Baking soda left in a dry boot overnight absorbs some odour and is harmless; we are not going to claim a figure for how much, because none is published. What we will say plainly is that putting a damp, sealed boot in a plastic box or a car boot is how a mild smell becomes a permanent one.

Storing boots between seasons

Store boots clean, dry and loosely laced, somewhere with stable temperature and some airflow - not a sealed box, not a damp garage floor, not a hot attic. Leather boots benefit from a light conditioning before a long storage, because that is exactly when they dry out. Keep the insoles out or at least loose.

One thing worth checking when you take them out again: adhesives and midsole foams age whether you hike or not, so a boot that has sat for five years can delaminate on its first walk even though the tread looks new. The checks for that - press the midsole, flex the sole unit, look at the rand - are in when to replace hiking boots, and if the boots are one of the rebuildable models in most durable hiking boots, a recraft is cheaper than a replacement. If you are about to spend on a new pair instead, are expensive hiking boots worth it? is the honest version of that decision.