Montrail, TNF or other supportive trail runners to replace Salomon XA Pro 2 XCR

FYI I like a roomy toe box, and have a slightly wide, low volume foot. Sometimes I take a double E, like in New Balance 806s and in most cases I take normal width.

My wife has a normal width, low to medium volume feet.

First a rant, why can’t manufacturers even keep there sizing consistent through out their line, you can skip up and down almost two sizes with one brand. I swear I’ll never mail order another pair of shoes…Both pair of my montrails seem to have narrow toe boxes.
Roadrunner Sports is very good at knowing how their various lines cross compare. If you can tell them a shoe that fits you they’ll kick out some options.
Trail Runner magazine has a home page that lists the contents of their magazines and a forum wear you can lurk and post, their are several shoe posts.
Gotta go mail order some shoes, good luck.

Thanks Larry. Which Montrails do you have? Does RoadRunner carry many of the top waterproof trail runners?

I’ve seen posts that claim you need to order the Montrails 1/2 to 1 whole size up. Also saw posts warning about heel slippage, not enough tongue padding in the Mountain Mist XCR and soles separating from the show in the Hurricane. Not many posts, but enough to want to find out more. Shoes we’ve been looking at:

– The North Face Ultra Gore-Tex
– Montrail Hurricane Ridge XCR
– MONTRAIL Mountain Mist XCR

Anyone have any experience with these?

I grabbed a pair of the North face ultra’s last year on ebay. I wanted to use them for trail running and some fast packing. I still like a boot for most of my backpacking.
After using them for a few weeks I got rid of them. They seriously lacked much forefoot cushin! After a short run, 4 miles or so, my feet would hurt from the pounding. I weigh 190 lbs by the way, and I am 6 ft.
I only used them on some shorter day hikes and they seemed fine, but I would be afraid to wear them all day with a pack.
They did seem to be well made and plenty tough, but the lack of cushin was somthing I diddnt want to deal with. Maybe if your lighter and dont plan on running in them, they might be a good choice.
J

Thanks for the heads up James. 180lbs and 6ft, and former special forces, so my feet have taken a nasty beating over time. I prefer light but sturdy boots (Vasque Caldera GTX) for most hiking and backpacking. We want to use these for short hikes, trail runs and running outside in winter. How do you think the TNF Ultras would work for under 2 hours running outside and hiking with a fanny pack/very light pack for a few hours? I do prefer decent cushioning (not much natural cushioning left for me in the soles of my feet) and a good nylon shank for torsional stiffness, which I find reduces foot fatique quite a bit and protects from rocks and roots.

We seem like we might have similar feet. I played college tennis, trail ran for years, and now I make my living as a Large format landscape photographer and backpacking guide in the Gila National Forest. So I have spent alot of time mashing my feet with a heavy pack. Maybe not as much as a Special forces unit. Is it true you guys carry 100 pound packs?
I need good cushin from a shoe that I run and backpack in, or my feet will hurt. For trail running I have had good luck with Nike, although I havent tried Montrail runners, but I diddnt like thier boots. But I would not use the Nikes for hiking. For backpacking I like Dunham boots and Lowa Boots.
The north face shoes left me feet in major pain in the fore foot area, heel cushin was fine. Yes they were very rigid and supportive for a running shoe. So they might be ok for only hiking. But if you are a fairly serouis runner then I would’nt reccomend these to my worst enemy! I dont want to be a cripple by the time I’m in my mid thirties.

Great shoes, really comfortable and one of the only companies that use a Last that fits my feet (I have narrow heels and a wide toe arch), I liked them so much I bought a pair of vapor lights.

I actually wear the vapor lights more often, since they breathe better.

If I’m in really muddy or wet conditions, however. I use the XCRs.

Oh, just one note about using TNF. I had a really great experience with their cutosmer service department. The XCRs had a nagging problem for a few month, that I thought would work itself out. It didn’t, and as I felt around in the shoe it appeared to be a manufacturing defect.

When I sent the shoes in (somewhat worn, with a note saying what I thought was wrong, and could they see if they could fix / reglue it) they sent be a brand new pair of the next year’s model sans defect (which was funny as I what I had actually bought was the previous year’s model… at a pretty steep discount). These seem to fit my feet even better.

Also, yes (I began writing this and stopped so I missed a couple of comments) they may be a little light on forfront cushioning, but I prefer my shoes that way.

By the way, I was complaining about the Ultra 102 gore tex xcr’s. I have not tried the Ultra 103’s. They look better.

Are they true to shoe size? I usually buy running shoes (I use New Balance) 1/2 size larger than my shoe size, allows for foot expansion when pounding the ground. Same for hiking boots. Any advice for ordering size for Ultras if your true shoe size is 11 and you usually buy 11.5 in standard New Balance running shoes?

I would call North face and ask them. When I bought mine over a year ago North face said that the shoes was running small so I should size up a full size. I did, and they fit my feet perfect. But that was a year ago and I’m sure they have changed. I wear a 11 normally and I got size 12.

Like the TNF Pinyon, for example.
Thanks for the great posts, very helpful.

I actually tried on some Montrail Masai (I think) when I was looking at getting the TNF’s via internet (no one around here stocks the TNFs).

Like the Montrail’s they are a little snug, so order a half size up.

For instance, I wear a 8.5 Nike, but a 9 TNF or Montrail.

I’ve owned both the montrail susitna II xcr and the hardrock, both a little small,1/2 size. Road Runner carries asics,adidas,brooks,new balance,dunham,a ton of new balance,nike, and saucony.
The numero uno trail runner around here uses salomon gcs xcr,an inov-8 test shoe , and access xcr by five tennie and he gets any shoe he wants as part of his sponser package.