REALLY GOOD SHOES(?)

Summit,

Regarding the Delerions, I haven’t tried them myself but those shoes were the subject of a few threads recently (in the past 6 months or so). Do a search for them.

Seems a lot of folks liked them other than one major gripe…something about the stiffness of the tongue, or some such, causing discomfort.

Can you be more specific as to your fit issues? I find that the more you describe what doesn’t work with the footwear you have tried, then the more good advice you’ll get about what to try next.

Really—like your pack question—the one that fits you best. They may be seriously sick shoes but have you tried them on? These are 3 very different pieces of footwear. What are your needs?

In terms of trail runners—there are many others besides the Delerions, of course ( I have a pair of the discontinued Delerion Pros, which I love, w/ caveats–see my reader review). Shouldn’t ignore Montrail, Salomon, Merril, New Balance and others.

As for the 2 heavier shoes you posted, you should also take a look at Lowa Tempest Lows or Mids. I find the Timberland marque to be very inconsistant—some stuff is well designed and made, others, less so.

XCR membranes in shoes make for hot dogs. Good for cold, wet conditions but not warm ones. They will eventually leak.

I agree with Kevin about gore-tex – I don’t like it in shoes because my feet get hot and steamy even on dry days; “hot dogs” is a good description of the effect.

“What are your needs?”

Goretex is not a requirement, it jsut seems that those seem to have goretex. The Cadion has a nongoretex version that I’m leaning towards.

What I need is a shoe with at least slightly more support than most trail runners I tried on.

Durability in and performance on steep slopes, scrambles, scree, rock, bushwacking is desirable.

The boots are in there because they would replace the Timberland midboots I’ve been using as a light duty summer SAR boot while still working for backpacking if I didn’t get something else.

“In terms of trail runners—there are many others besides the Delerions, of course ( I have a pair of the discontinued Delerion Pros, which I love, w/ caveats–see my reader review). Shouldn’t ignore Montrail, Salomon, Merril, New Balance and others.”

I tried every Merrel, Salomon, New Balance, Montrail, Columbia, Lowe, and Asolo trail runner I could get my hands on.

Every pair either had bad heel slip, outside forefoot pressure, and/or lack of support issues. I think ski boots are easier to fit on me than trail runners (ski boots I wear Garmonts and Nordica).

“Can you be more specific as to your fit issues? I find that the more you describe what doesn’t work with the footwear you have tried, then the more good advice you’ll get about what to try next.”

My feet are very hard to find a right fit. I have a high instep, medium forefoot that gets very wide for a short bit, and a narrow heel that has little contour vertically as it approaches the ankle, then the ankle suddenly pokes out . This means the salomons squeeze the daylights out of my forefoot, as do the lowe and asolo and most have trouble holding onto my heel. Some Montrails and New Balance were close to fitting.

I have a feeling I’ll be taking advantage of the order-multiple-sizes-return-what-doesn’t-fit.

The problem is NOBODY carries those Timberlands around here and NOBODY carries Teva X-1 or X-1/Cs (or any other Teva shoe).

There’s no magic bullet for hard to fit feet. Unfortunately there are no heat moldable inner boots to custom fit the fit a la ski boots such as my Scarpas. But there are aftermarket footbeds such as Superfeet, and Merrell, Montrail and others make such— which add to the shoes support and often help solve fit problems. First thing I do w/ all my footwear is to take out the stock insoles and replace w/ Superfeet (Performance Green). I also try all new footwear w/ same.

If you ever found a really good fitter of ski boots(they are worth their weight in gold and have a greater skills set for footwear fitting than the average Jill or Joe in a mtn shop) they might help you figure out a way to make many of these shoes and boots to work for you.

Some of your indicated uses call out for an approach shoe— everyone from La Sportiva to Scarpa plus all the usual trail runner suspects make a version of these. Stickier rubber for lower grade climbing, more support, and more foot pro.