Wet Leaves Are Slipperier Than Ice

Everyone respects ice. Ice looks dangerous, so people walk differently on it — shorter steps, flat feet, weight centered. That behaviour prevents a lot of falls.

Nobody respects wet leaves. And wet leaves on a hard surface can be genuinely worse, because the leaf itself acts as a loose layer between your sole and the ground. You're not slipping on the pavement. You're standing on something that slides across the pavement.

Autumn is when most people's footwear gets tested and quietly fails.

The three surfaces that catch people out

Wet leaves on concrete or asphalt. The worst combination. The leaf is smooth, it's saturated, and it shears. A deep tread doesn't help much here — there's nothing to bite into.

Wet painted lines and metal. Crosswalk markings, manhole covers, loading ramps, the metal strip on a shop threshold. All near-zero grip when wet.

Wet decking and smooth stone. Garden steps, patios, wet flagstone at a market. These are the ones that get people at home, which is where most falls actually happen.

What actually gives you grip

Two things, and only one of them is the one people look at.

Rubber compound. This is the one that matters most and the one nobody can see. Softer rubber conforms to the surface and grips; hard rubber skates. It's the same trade-off as tyres — softer grips better and wears faster. A hard-compound sole on wet stone is effectively a plastic shoe.

Tread pattern. This matters, but less than people think, and it matters differently depending on the surface. Deep aggressive lugs are for soft ground — mud, loose dirt — where the lug can sink in and push against something. On a hard wet surface there's nothing to sink into, so what you actually want is more contact area with fine siping — the small slits that channel water out from under the sole.

Which means the boot that looks the most rugged is often the worst one for a wet pavement. Big widely-spaced lugs reduce the amount of rubber touching the ground.

The test you can do in the shop

Press your thumbnail hard into the sole.

• Leaves a mark that slowly springs back — softer compound. Good wet grip.
• Nothing happens, feels like hard plastic — hard compound. It'll last forever and grip nothing.

Then look at the sole surface. You want to see fine lines cut into the lugs themselves — siping. A lug that's one smooth block of rubber is a squeegee that failed.

How you walk matters as much as what you wear

This part is free.

• Shorten your stride. Long steps land with your foot at an angle, which is where slips start. Short steps land flatter.
• Keep your weight over your feet, not ahead of them. Leaning forward is how you go down backwards.
• Take your hands out of your pockets. Arms are your balance system. The single most common factor in bad falls is having nothing free to catch yourself with.
• Slow down going down. Downhill, downstairs, down a ramp — that's where grip is being asked to do the most.

Autumn is the season to check

Before the weather really turns, do this:

1. Turn your boots over. Are the lugs still there, or is the middle worn smooth? The centre wears first and it's the part doing the most work on flat ground.
2. Thumbnail test the rubber. Old rubber hardens with age even if the tread looks fine. A five-year-old boot that's barely been worn can have worse grip than a two-year-old one that's been used constantly.
3. Check the heel edge. The outside back corner is where you land. If it's rounded off, you've lost the edge that catches on a descent.

If any of those fail, the tread you're looking at is decorative.

What we build

Our orthopedic boots run a softer-compound sole with siped lugs — designed for wet hard surfaces rather than deep mud, because that's what most people actually walk on. Water-resistant upper, wide toe box, orthopedic footbed.

The autumn surface that catches most people out isn't a trail — it's the ramp out of a parking garage, or a painted crosswalk line, with a film of wet leaf across it.

But do the thumbnail test on whatever you own right now. It costs nothing and it tells you more than the label does.

Orthopedic Hiking Boots · $89.95

General information, not medical advice.

Eric is 54 and is a contributor to the Northman's Outdoor blog.