Let me start by saying the I absolutely love Salomon shoes, which in my experience require zero break-in and have never given me a blister. My summer/desert hikers are the non-GTX X Ultra trail runners, when I will be in mud/muck I use X-Ultra GTX boots, and when I need burly shoes I reach for the 4D2 GTX boots. I also have/had a pair of Salomon Toundras for seriously cold weather. I had used them on a couple of occasions in snow in the Canadian Rockies and they were fine – toasty, comfortable, and light even in -30C weather.
I recently took the Toundras on a backpacking trip through the Yukon that was largely off-trail on rough terrain. A lot of time was spent on snow-covered talus. When walking on talus I usually try to step between rocks, so that my foot lands in (hopefully) stable depressions that provide some additional support to the ankle and also aid in case of partial loss of balance. This tends to be fairly rough on the shoes, as there is a good amount of abrasion from the rocks. The 4D2 GTX have been a champ in such conditions. However, the Toundras’ seams separated within the first 12 hrs and I spent the next 8 days with perpetually soaked feet. I am attaching an image below of what happened. The actual situation was worse than it looks in the image. At one point the seams separated enough to expose the GTX shell, which eventually tore too. My hiking partner and I both wore the Toundras, both relatively new, and all four boots suffered a similar fate.
Given this experience I am not willing to just chalk it to a glitch, so I will not be buying another pair of Toundras. Was wondering what are similar boots that people use – well insulated, fairly light, yet robust enough to be taken off-trail.
