snow boots

Have you considered a waterproof shoe? I use Salomon's with gators. I have to walk a little over a mile too and from my car everyday through snow and these work great and are also great for Hiking trail running and snowshoeing. I use different thickness of smart wool socks and down to 5-10 degrees they are great. Alan

Do you have a model of shoe in mind?
Richard

Hi Richard

Those are all Very Heavy Boots. I think most staff here at Backpacking LIGHT wear light WP/B joggers.

Cheers

Salomon XA Comp 3 GTX, on sale right now at REI.com for 79.00 Make sure you size before you buy. I have been using these since about 2000 and love them. They are without a doubt the longest lasting shoe I have ever had. Ali

I am a true ultraliter in the 3 seasons, but am looking for warmth and dryness over weight in winter. Maybe I'm wimping out!

Thanks Allan. These may be just the ticket to replace my aging three season Salomen boots. I'm still not sure they are suitable for the heavy snow we have.

Richard,
I can't comment on your selections as I haven't used them, but for the last 2 winters I used a pair of Merrel Radius Mid WP. They are great down to as low as it gets here. This year I switched to Montrail Hardrocks for weight savings but had no complaints about the Merrels…

…looking for warmth and dryness over weight in winter

I keep saying this over and over again. Get waterproof socks and you don’t have to worry about wet feet.

I used mine in these conditions and had dry feet 99 % of the time.

Richard, I spent the last 7 years based out of Tahoe and never had any issues with deep snow but I would say this is a pretty big decision switching from boots to trail runners. Ali

I hadn't thought of waterproof socks. I did a google search and found seal skinz brand. Are these a common option in Europe?

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For a while, I've been teetering on the edge of switching to trail runners. Haven't had to bother up to now as my trusty Salomon mid boots have been excellent. They are now near the end of their life. I have been conditioned by so many years of mountaineering in UK that mids prtotect ankles. I have to say that in over 40 years of hiking with boots I have never twisted an ankle. So a switch to trail runners seems counterintuitive.

I’m reading very negative comments about them everywhere :-)

I got mine from Trekmates. I should get some from them for free for all the link building I am doing :-)

Richard,
I've been using Inov8 Roclite 390 GTX mid ankle trail shoes with gators and an Injinji/Coolmax sock combo the past 2 winters up here in the Cascades. Warm and dry(damp, actually) so far. I don't think the amount of snow has a lot to do with how warm your feet stay. It's more a function of ambient temperature, wind chill, avoiding conductive heat loss, and proper choice of insulating layers, plus paying attention to hydration/nutrition, IME/IMO. You could probably stay perfectly warm in just about any trail running shoe with gators, adequate insulating socks, and a vapor barrier or waterproof sock to protect your feet from conductive heat loss if your shoe is not waterproof. It's worth thinking through, because any weight you can save on your feet when you're snowshoeing is a HUGE plus. BPL's Will Rietveld has an excellent article on winter footwear strategies that is well worth reading, BTW. Good luck.

Not wanting to put feet with poor circulation at risk, I recently purchased a pair of Keen Growlers for use in snow activities. They weigh about 44 oz in size 11.5 — a size that I selected to allow for warmer socks even though my usual size is 10.5, or even 10 depending on type of shoe. Plus, I had read some reviews that suggested Keen's sizing runs a bit on the small side.

The Growlers have been comfortable & warm, but my use of them has been pretty limited so far. Haven't used them with snowshoes yet, which is actually the main reason I bought them. However, I believe there's an article here at BPL describing Growlers (along with other footwear such as lightweight trail shoes as recommended by others in this thread) as good for winter use.

JRS

The Keen Growlers are excellent. My wife and I have used them winter hiking and snowshoeing with Northern Lites snowshoes. In very cold weather (snowshoeing Mt Mansfield in VT in 5F with -20 wind chill) we snowshoed with overboots over the Growlers. They are recommended in the BPL winter footwear article.

The Growlers are a huge improvement over many soft sneaker-like winter boots from Columbia, TNF and others – they offer great support at a suprisingly light weight.

They do run small. I'm a size 11 foot, usually wear a size 11.5 hiking boot and in the Growlers I wear a 12.

I'm also looking forward to trying waterproof socks with trail shoes.

If you need the extra warmth, overboots are a good way to extend the warmth of your winter footwear.

We are wearing Neos overboots in my avatar photo (I forget the name of the model, but they are the tall light ones used by Will's wife for rafting, with no insulation). However, we're planning on switching to light Neoprene overboots I've read about on the forums (forget the name of the small shop that makes them custom size to your boot tracing). Organizing our winter gear now before a winter trip in January to the Sierra Nevada and snowshoeing and skiing. We're looking forward to our first West Coast snow season now that we've moved to the SF Bay Area.

There are also shorter ready made overboots you can pick up.