Boots @ 22 miles and +1000 miles

I know its been awhile, but anyone that says retirement is just sitting back and enjoying the scenery is sadly mistaken. Marlys and I have been busy. There were the Holiday's, which this year we spent here at Pinon Rock, and Derek was also around allot during the 5-6 week break at NMSU. We have also been tied up in search and rescue training, both the classroom incident command management type and field avalanche work (hard to do with the lack of snow so far this season) and shop projects, which will be the subject of another post.

The reason for this post though is boots. I got a new pair of boots for XMAS as backups, and I though I would do a longer term test review of them, as they live their life where man meets earth.

So why are these just backups?

About 18 months ago I bought a pair of Asolo Powermatic 200 boots from REI. I now have over 1000 document miles, on them according to mapmyhike.com. This doesn't include any SAR or 14er miles, only the thrice week;y walks (5.54 miles) that we do up here.  I have lived in these boots for awhile, so a few comment/observations maybe in order. 

These are a great pair of boots! 

If you went to the above link you probably noticed that mine, don't look like the one on the website...well that is because they were resoled at roughly the 800 mile mark. While getting them resoled, at Rocky Mountain Resole in Salida, I also had them put toe caps, to cut down on leather wear from the rocky terrain in our area. Also that is a Vibram replacement sole, versus the one Asolo puts on at the factory (Romania?).

Besides knocking the dirt off, I treat them with Nikwax waterproofing once a quarter. In the time I have had these they have seen their share of snow and stream crossings, and as long as I had on waterproof gaiters (Mountain Hardwear), and didn't stand around(top the boot, undermine the gaiters) in the water, my feet have never gotten wet. Until I got a pair of plastic Scarpa Inverno's last spring, used from a consignment shop, the Asolo's were even my avalanche/alpine boots. BTW the used Inverno's have seen the snow and rocks a number of times and they are, as they say "bomber".

Besides replacing the soles, the insoles have been replaced a couple of times. I have high arches, so without good support the balls of my feet take a licking, especially on downhills. I have been using the SOL Ed Viestus model and would highly recommend them.

On to the new backups. They too are Asolo's, mainly because the Asolo boot last seems to match my foot well, so I will probably stick with it for awhile.

While the Powermatic are backpacking boots (heavier duty), the Fugitives are hiking boots (read lighter). At this point I have 22 miles in them.

They are a real nice boot, but I can tell they probably would be harder on my feet when hauling a 24-hour pack around. They should work real good though when the weather warms up, in that my feet will stay cooler.

The thing about these boots is that even though they are a +$200 boot, Santa got them from Sierra Trading for about $80. A great boot for that price.

We are attempting to get a backcountry permit for the Grand Canyon in June. Its going to be a hard choice on which one to wear.