With a desire to live more adventurously, Bedrock friends Mak & Owen packed up their vanagon and hit the road a few years ago, taking their full time careers as mobile freelance designers with them. Not long into this lifestyle switch to van-living and maximizing time for outdoor pursuits, they picked up our Cairn sandals as their go-to footwear, both around camp, and in the mountains. A year into serious sandal abuse, Mak & Owen offer some good tips in this guest post for cleaning your Bedrocks the natural way, keeping odor and debris at bay all while having fun doing so.

Something tells me that you’ve been really busy this summer enjoying all that mother nature has to offer! How do we know? Because we have too! Bedrock Sandals don’t come with care instructions so we took it upon ourselves to do a little bit of field research and report back. We’ve made this easy to follow flowchart to help you find the best cleaning method for you!

Are you wearing Bedrocks?! Yes or No

No: You’d have more fun if you were!

Yes: Sweet! You look great! Now, when you look down are they dirty? Yes or No

No: Get out there, get them dirty, then come back and revisit this chart. Don’t worry, we’ll wait. If you need some outdoor activities we suggest any of the following:

Hike to a hidden swimming hole or mountain vista. 

Fly Fish a secret alpine lake.

Mountain bike with friends.

Rock Climb at your local Crag.

Scramble up a sand dune.

Practice your yoga poses in the Southwest.


Yes: I bet you’ve had a killer time out there! Now before you track all that filth into the house/car/van we need to find a way to get you cleaned up. What kind of dirty are we talking? Sandy? Dusty? Muddy? Covered in Foliage? Missing?

Sandy: Lucky for you sand is easy to get rid of! We recommend you take a leap off a cliff (of a safe height) into a body of water of your choosing. Repeat as necessary until you find your feet and Bedrocks squeaky clean. 

Dusty: Sadly, that’s not a tan you’re looking at... 

That’s about 10 miles of dust caked to your feet. Though you look great with tan feet, here’s what we recommend to clean yourself up:

We’ve found that the bluer the water, the better the cleaning power!

Muddy: Despite the fact that all that mud makes you look like a badass, we should probably get you cleaned up a bit.

The only thing tougher than getting the mud off your Bedrocks is diving into a glacial lake. You can do it, we believe in you.

Covered in Foliage: Actually, on second thought, that looks really nice, maybe you should leave it that way. If that doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will! 

Missing: Color us impressed, you must’ve really gone after it out there. We recommend you replace those bad boys STAT. That way you can get out there and enjoy more of what you love. 

We’ve found all these methods to be tried and true for cleaning our Bedrocks after an adventure. Feel free to get creative because the world is your cleaning oyster! Here are some more methods to clean your Bedrocks if you don’t fit into one of the above categories:

There’s always the option of choosing an activity that would keep your Bedrocks clean like fly fishing!

Take in a view standing in ankle deep water.

Feel free to take a load off while you clean your Bedrocks. Pull up a chair, your favorite bag of wine, and let the river do the work.

Puddle jumping has got to be one of the most underrated ways of cleaning off. Do it once, do it twice, do it as many times as needed. You might even find you continue to do it long after your Bedrocks are cleaned.

 Cross a river or stream.

Do a partially submerged hike, perfect for cleaning your Bedrocks on the go.
Take a long stroll down a rocky beach. We’ve found the abrasion of small rocks against Bedrocks makes a great cleaning agent.

We hope you find these thoroughly researched cleaning methods to be beneficial for you after your next adventure! Feel free to refer back to these demonstrations of cleanliness as necessary.

All photos taken by and property of Mak and Owen.