Describing
the
loyalty
of
Dave
Page's
clients
is
like
beginning
a
joke:
a
man
in
Chamonix
buys
his
boots
six
blocks
from
his
home
and
then
sends
them
to
Seattle
for
orthopedic
inserts.
A
pair
of
Vasque
Sundowners
is
pecked
to
death
by
a
Costa
Rican
parrot,
and
the
owner
turns
to
Page.
In
fact,
almost
every
major
boot
manufacturer
sends
its
warranty work to his Seattle workshop.
Page
was
a
University
of
Washington
history
professor
in
1968
when
he
financed
a
climbing
binge
cutting
hiking-boot
uppers
at
a
small
factory
in
Kitzbuhel,
Austria.
The
menial
labor
sang
to
the
29-year
old
academic's
soul.
"It
was
the
3,000-year
history,"
he
says.
"The
materials-the
leather-hooked
me"
By
the
next
summer
he'd
left
the
university
and
was
cobbling
in
his
basement.
Now,
30
years
later,
he
schools
eight
craftspeople
in
the
minutiae
of
Vibram
outsoles
and
D-
ring
eyelets.
"I'm
drawn
to
boots
that
aren't
gimmicky,"
Page
says.
"I
do
most
of
my
mountaineering
in
ten-
year-old boots-nothing fancy."
"He's
a
phenomenom,"
says
climbing
monolith
Fred
Beckey.
"He's
resoled
tens
of
thousands
of
boots.
How
many
of
mine?
Seven?
Seventeen?
I
have
no
idea.
That's
like
asking
Madonna
how
many
times
she's
had
an orgasm."
Written by Eric Hansen / Photo by Dave Emmite
Outside Magazine / August 1999
Guaranteed to Last
The distinguished professor of worn-out boots is
hell bent for leather
