Steel-capped and built to withstand 1,000°C.
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I’m not jumping around with the kids anymore, but I may still have to take a look at those.
Wait, 1,000°C? What kind of pits you get into son?
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My boots I love because I have done practically everything in them for years. They are Carolina steel-toed logger boots. My previous employer used to subsidize work boots off a truck, and these were IMO the best they had, so I ended up with quite a few pairs of these. I have two pairs left, both beat to hell with the steel toes starting to poke through the leather. They are rather heavy. My only complaint about them is that the heels are rather high and the exact angle of my foot bothers my knees after a while.
I am broke right now, but I am thinking ahead to what I might replace these with. I prefer knee-high boots, but I don’t find many that are sturdy. I will probably try going for lineman’s boots next time, Carolina or maybe Wesco if I can afford them.
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It’s not class, or ideology, or colour, creed or roots…
The only thing that unites us is…
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Me gusta.
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The first boots I ever owned are also the best I’ve ever owned. That’s bad because they’re no longer available and a glowing recommendation doesn’t help anybody. Those were Vasque Sundowners, and I was incredibly lucky because all I did was walk into REI and say hey, I’m going on this big trip (Tetons then Yellowstone), what should I get, and they pointed me to the Sundowners. I wore thick wool socks over wicking polypro liner socks, never had one problem, fit perfectly, no blisters ever, great support at the ankle, sturdy Vibram stable sole with grippy lugs and a shank (probably steel) in the sole to keep it from bending too much under a heavy pack load and to keep rocks from poking the bottom of your feet. Thick but supple leather with Gore-Tex liners. I think these were $149 at the time, and they lasted many many years over a lot of miles. A+++, would buy again.
Unfortunately, to my great disappointment when I went looking for replacements last year, I found that Vasque had sold itself to Redwing who had moved production from Italy to Asia, and something was lost in translation. Nothing against Redwing in general, but all the reports from people who really loved the originals was that the new Sundowners just weren’t the same and the quality wasn’t there any more. I looked at some in stores and they were stiff and poorly shaped, so I passed on that.
Outscoping the search, it was Merrell everywhere I looked. In all my online searches and in all the local outdoorsy stores, Merrell was being jammed in my face. Everywhere I shopped I had to wade through a thicket of Merrell before getting to anything else. They got me; I ended up with a pair of Merrell Moab Ventilators. The last time I walked through an airport I saw five people wearing these.
You can get these in waterproof (“waterproof”) but the base Moab Ventilator is intended for hot climates or hot feet where you want them to breathe. A use case would be desert hiking or fishing in hot dry climates (American West) in the summer, where you’ve decided it would be fine for your feet to get wet because it’s so hot and with the breathable boots they’ll dry out quickly afterward. These would also be good for casual daily wear if you want something a little sturdier than tennis or running shoes, and the toe cap is nice (if you trip over your own feet like me). The sole is Vibram, which I now consider mandatory. As with many of the Merrell products, these are available in both low and mid. The mid adds about an extra inch of boot up the ankle with extra lacing, but ankle support is still minimal. There’s no shank or just a light plastic one, which is good for just walking around with a natural stride or light hiking but not for carrying a load. Not a backpacking boot, although I’m sure people use it for that. I wouldn’t want these for cold or wet weather. I think these were $55 on sale.
I also saw a lot of Keen, which is a Merrell competitor, apparently serving a similar (“light hiker”) market. Keen has a reputation for having a lot of room across the toes, which is actually what I need for my foot shape. Unfortunately, they have a weird styling for the toe that makes them look bulbous and I couldn’t get past that. I have to look at my feet, ya know, and I don’t want to have to avert my eyes when I’m walking. My idea of what a boot should look like probably needs relaxing. I may come back around to these in the future; if I could get past the looks it would probably be a great fit.
I tried the Vasque Mantra 2 GTX as a heavy-duty waterproof walking/hiking hybrid shoe. These aren’t boots, so they don’t immobilize the ankle nor do they protect the ankle from banging on rocks, and I wouldn’t consider these suitable for multi-day trips, especially not with snow, cold or wet. However, most of my walking is not backpacking, it’s just the roads and (somewhat extracurricularly) green spaces around the house, with the occasional day hike thrown in, in which case a sturdy shoe would be perfect. My running shoes that I usually walked in were completely worn out, and even though the “barefoot walking” feel helped connect me to the surface under my feet, helping me walk with awareness (having to think about each step leads to an absorbing and pleasurable state of mind which is different from when you’re able to kick anything or walk on anything without worrying about it), the first time I stepped on a broken bottle it would be going right through the sole of those old shoes. I also wanted to come home with dry socks, and after walking through wet grass, my running shoes were coming back as wet sponges.
So the Mantras looked good and I really wanted to like those, but they didn’t work out. I need a wide (in the toes, not the heel). I like my toes to have a lot of room to lift for what feels like a natural stride. Amazon had both 2E and 4E, so I ordered both and planned to return one. (Free shipping and return.) It turned out I couldn’t tell any difference in the two widths, and when I measured the soles they were exactly the same width. I emailed Vasque customer service and they confirmed that’s how they do it, they build up the shoe on the same base and add material to the upper for extra width, but I couldn’t tell any difference and even the 4E was too tight.
The other problem was that, appearance-wise, they looked very different from what I saw on Amazon. They were much darker than in pictures. On Amazon there was a nice contrasting two-color effect in the sole, but in real life there was almost no contrast there. Part of the design (that I liked) included large regions of Gore-Tex on top of the shoes with leather around the base. In the pictures this was colored to blend visually with the base, but in real life the Gore-Tex was light and reflective while the base was dark gray-green. The effect in lower light was something like wearing aluminum foil, and in full daylight they looked more like police tactical boots than anything for hiking. Sadly, these went back. The tread and soles themselves seemed perfect, just da bomb.
(* All four times I’ve ordered shoes and boots from Amazon, they were darker in real life than in pictures. My guess is they’re taking pictures with a light booth and bright spotlights, making it hard to tell what the real color will be.)
After the Mantras didn’t work out I decided to separate backpacking and daily walking into separate shoes, and not try to do it all with one. Next up: Merrell Mojave Mid Waterproof for my wet-weather daily walker and light hiker. I liked the look, they came in a mid for some extra height to avoid surprises when you step in a puddle that’s deeper than you thought, breathable liner and they claimed waterproof. I was skeptical about the waterproofing – how could something made from so many different pieces stitched together keep out liquid? – but customer reviews backed up the claim. Result: NOT WATERPROOF. I should know by now to trust my own judgment. I wore these on the Vernal Falls Mist Trail and my socks were soaked through. They’re fine in a light to moderate rain, perfectly suitable for mud, but if you actually immerse them you get a little squirt of liquid at the base of the tongue, and when you take them off you can see where muddy water marked your socks.
The tread pattern on these is adequate but it hasn’t really held up at all. It took two months at most to smooth off the lugs under the balls of my feet, totally not cool. Merrell calls the tread material M Select Grip, and whatever it is it’s too soft for pavement. Merrell may be going for grippy, but the lugs are too widely spaced and not deep enough for material this soft. This is why I’ll be looking for Vibram (or equivalent, although I don’t know what that would be) for all future buys. There’s also flaking of the leather where it joins the toe cap, looking like a future failure point. The fit is great (with extra molefoam around the heel for my weird feet) and I love the look, but with the tread I won’t be buying these again.
Around the same time I was shopping for wet-weather shoes for daily walks, I was still looking for full-on backpacking boots and the Vasque St. Elias GTX came on the radar because my brother-in-law has a pair. Like me, he got these to replace his Sundowners (which he got because I had them, so, symmetry). These have turned out to be good in walking trials although I haven’t done an overnighter backpack trip with them yet. The right price range, thick enough leather while still supple, good tread pattern and Vibram material, decent-looking (am I bad for caring about that?), high at the ankle with the ability to lace tightly for ankle support or open for full range of motion, minimally-flexy bomb-proof sole with a stiff shank to keep the rocks out. It’s not a natural stride with the ankle locked down and the stiff sole, but that’s how it is with heavy-duty boots; on certain terrain with a heavy pack this is what I want.
They are waterproof (I’ve tested) with a Gore-Tex liner for “breathability”, but how exactly they think air is going to move in and out through the leather I don’t know. Maybe that’s so sweat will be expelled to the inner surface of the leather? There is some permeability in that the leather will soak up water when submerged (I Sno-Sealed mine to stop that), but that’s still without reaching the interior. $136 on sale at Amazon. I ordered both 2E and 4E, and (unlike with the Mantras) there was a noticeable difference in the fit between the two widths. I kept the 4E for the extra room and then padded it out to fit. (I basically want to feel like walking on pillows with giant springs underneath. These didn’t come with much padding, so I took out the thin inserts that came with them to get down to the flat footbed, then added a layer of foam, a layer of gel, plus custom orthotics.)
Two downsides. One, review videos on YouTube said that the bottom of the lace hardware was kind of sharp, and that’s turned out to be true. One guy said you should carry replacement laces, or just get kevlar laces, because you can plan on eventually cutting the standard laces against the hardware. You can feel it with your fingers; the underside of the hardware has too much of an edge. Not cut-your-skin sharp, but they should have made them smoother. Guys, come on, it’s a known problem, fix this. I’ll go the kevlar route.
The other downside isn’t with the boot itself but with how I pad it. The last two times I’ve used these they took a patch of skin off the back of my ankle, probably because I have so much padding that it’s pushing my ankle up into the curve of the boot in back. I’ll have to either reduce the padding, plan on just always having a band-aid there, or maybe see if I there’s a cobbler who can stretch the boot for me there.
I’m of the lightweight school of thought with hiking footwear- though, to be fair, I tend towards the “ambitious dayhike” end of things and not the “month long backcountry trek” school.
Anyway.
I had a pair of Asolo hiking shoes for YEARS that were awesome- great shoes. Not waterproof or whatever, but that’s not something especially important to me. Like an older version of these, maybe:
Now a days, I go as light as I can. I have some new-og teva sandals I wear a lot:
Or, when I’m feeling like those are too heavy, I wear a pair of Bedrocks:
In the colder/harder hikes, I wear a pair of Nike SFB’s:
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I finally retired my Adidas GSG9-2 boots for being too narrow and got Reebok 8895 8 inch boots.
So far so good.
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That is an important factor.
Different companies use different lasts, so the same size shoe from a different company may not be the same shape.
Tevas tend to be a bit skinny across the ball of the foot, Salomons tend to be a bit wide in the same place, etc.
You get a similar thing with motorcycle helmets; you’ll hear bikers talking about having a Shoei-shaped head vs an AGV-shaped head and so on.
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Someone told me that locking the ankle is now considered bad for knees because it forces them to do more of the shock absorbing, and that lightweight is the way to go if it’s at all possible.
I would be twisting my ankle every other month or so without the support for them… yeah I am a klutz.
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Whatever works for you is cool. But one of the benefits of hiking in lightweight footwear is that you rapidly develop very strong ankles.
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My Doc Martin 20’s…
“you weren’t always boring!” my friends 15yr old daughter upon discovering these today.
Umm, thx?
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There was an army study a bunch of years ago, too, that seemed to indicate that saving 1lb on the foot was worth saving some multiple of that on the back- that is to say, weight on the foot costs more than weight on the back.
Regardless.
I’m a bit lucky- I’ve got very, very flexible ankles. I’ve never twisted/sprained/hurt an ankle, and it’s not for lack of trying. It lets me get away with stuff others might not be able to.
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The last pair of Vasques I owned weighed 7 pounds. But I never did wear them out…
Thanks for the modern boot roundup!
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What kind of boots does 7 pounds get you?
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Mine sure feel that heavy sometimes. I did wear through the soles on the previous pair but it took 3+ years and I still use them for yard work to keep the grass stains off the new ones.
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Could you deburr the bottom of the lace part with a needle file maybe?
Hell yes I do.
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Y’know what? No. It’s kind of my own fault, but my boots were a gift from someone who hadn’t been using them for a while and decided to pass them on.They looked pretty good - quite comfortable, seemingly sturdy, not much wear at all. So one day I took them out in the snow, and the midsoles completely disintegrated. I mean, worse than this:
I must have gone about 2 km, and both soles were attached by a little patch at the front, so I just about managed to shuffle home. Apparently this is a thing that happens with a number of shoes nowadays - they expire in about 5-10 years whether you use them or not. It’s a good thing I wasn’t far from home, because they showed no signs of this as I was leaving. This was the first time I’d worn them, so the midsole must have perished while the shoes were sitting in the guy’s wardrobe.
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