View Full Version : The Great Hiking Shoe Survey
The Great Hiking Shoe Survey: :banana
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How many trail miles did you get out of your last pair of hiking shoes?
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For me:
I’ve hiked in the regular Merrell Moab Ventilators shoes (no gore-tex here) and they seem to last an average of 800 PCT miles. But the record number of miles I got from one pair of Moabs is 1400 and I am still hiking in them despite all the tears/holes :).
K.B.
Keep on walking!
Blue Jay
12-13-2008, 09:22
I usually get about a 1000 in Merrels
1200 in Chacos.
The sandals or the shoes?
They make both nowadays.
300-400 miles in trail runners. More in a boot with a vibram sole.
garlic08
12-13-2008, 20:33
600 miles from New Balance 8XX series. My wife got over 1300 on the PCT with her Moab Ventilators.
Frick Frack
12-13-2008, 22:18
Only 700 miles in Asolo Powermatic 400 gv's....WOW, I got burned......
2,500 miles on a pair of Montrail AT hikers.
I'm generally easy on shoes/boots. I get about 1000-1500 miles on my Vasque Trail runners. Will replace the Superfeet insoles at about 500 or 600 miles.
CrumbSnatcher
12-20-2008, 16:13
2 pair of chaco z1 sandels every thruhike. the straps wear out not the soles. so you can have the sandels restraped by sending them back to chaco.
pre-Columbia Montrail Hardrocks
Went from Boulder, CO to Grants, NM
Not sure who many miles that is... a lot? :)
I now get 3-4 mos out of Hardrocks when not doing long hikes.
Tend to use them less inw inter (skiing vs hiking, being a bit lazy during the week. :O)
danahyatt
06-26-2010, 22:24
I average about 6-8 miles with these mids. The insoles move around, up the sides and down under. The toes alway leak and I get boots full of rain and creek water. I bought the Moab because they are lite and airy with an aggressive sole profile. My guess is the rock dust causes abrasive damage to the gore-tex. The insoles are smooth on the bottom so they slip around and causes blisters on the side of my heels. The best point is that they are cheap, under $100.
wcgornto
06-26-2010, 22:49
800 miles on Salomons from Duncannon to Erwin
Only about 350 miles on each of my last 3 pairs of Inov-8 Terroc 330's (http://www.inov-8.com/Products-Detail.asp?PG=PG1&L=27&P=5050973044), but it was on brutal trails... mountains, rocks, roots, and water. The very low weight makes up for the lack of mileage.
Danielsen
07-01-2010, 23:16
I spent the last few years attending school, 2 and a half miles away, and I walked both ways every single day, so my boots saw a lot of road duty (more than wilderness, sadly).
Merrell Chameleon Wrap GTX low: at least 1200 miles of roadwalking as well as at least a few hundred miles of real hiking, creek sloshing, canoe carrying, and snow trudging and god knows what else. When I finally let go of them there were holes in the bottoms of the soles, but the uppers still looked almost new and were still waterproof! Darn tough boots.
5.10 Camp Four: Another good 1000 miles or so of roadwalking, and several hundred miles of whatever else. The uppers are still good, and the soles are still sticky, but they've been relegated to lawn mowing because the rigid heel-cup material is falling apart, putting big holes in the sides of the shoes. Really not helpful. Great shoes while they were good though, and now I don't think I can ever go back to vibram. Stealth from now on.
montrail hardrocks, 2008 i think. 400+ miles and still going
I used to wear Merrells and they did seem to last a really long time. I wore them dayhiking every weekend for years. They were great at first and then my third pair were just unbearable. So I gave up on Merrells.
Running shoes wear out way too quickly. Worse than that, they change them too often (as do my feet, it seems) and I waste a lot of money and shoes trying to find a new pair that will work. I give up. I'm not playing this game anymore.
I'm hiking in Chacos these days. They seem to last a long time. Don't fit very well. Regular width too narrow, wide width the straps are in the wrong place. I can manage with socks, so they're my hiking shoe of choice for now. But I think I give up on mass-produced shoes.
Next I'm going to try custom-made shoes made to a pattern of my feet. I can have them resoled if they wear out. We'll see how that goes.
I get 500-600 miles out of NB trail runners (909, 876).
greentick
07-05-2010, 19:55
2-300 miles no matter the brand due to weird shaped feet, can only wear wides/x-wide
Wow, I never have keep track of the hiking miles on my shoes and boots. I will have to start logging what footwear I wear when I hike. I do keep a quick list of hikes and the mileage, so it would be easy to do.But, I also wear my footwear for non-trail miles as well, such as to work, to the range, to the store, anywhere and everywhere.SMSP
I shoot for replacing my shoes every 500 miles. I use Golite shoes. The first and second generation models I used on the PCT in 2008 had more delicate uppers which would tend to tear out (especially gen 1). More current models have tougher uppers.
The Sierras were particularly tough on shoes on the PCT and the Whites and parts of Maine seemed hard on the soles of the shoes on the AT (I was missing multiple tread "lugs" for the latter part of Maine), so might want to plan on a few less miles between replacements for those stretches.
I found my Golites to be a poor choice for traction on wet smooth rock slabs in NH and ME. But they're the only brand of shoes that I'm sure I can wear without triggering bunionette (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunionette) problems, so for me it was just a matter of being (trying to be ...) careful. And still falling more often than I cared for (!).