Name: Judd Slivka
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Height: 5’8” (1.73 m)
Weight: 190 lb (86 kg)
Email address:desertsherpa AT yahooDOTcom
City, State, Country: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Date: 8/5/04
Backpacking Background: I’ve backpacked sporadically for the last five or so years, mostly dayhiking. In the last 10 months, I’ve gotten much more serious about it and have been hiking through Arizona’s Central Highlands region. That’s a lot of cactus to walk into.
Most of my hikes have been desert and transitional zone hikes, going from 1,300 feet (396 m) up to 7,000 feet (2,134 m) Because of the relative lack of running water in the desert, most of my camps are dry camps. I try and minimize weight where I can. I’m by no means fanatical about shaving weight, but I do try and take it into account.

Product description
Manufacturer: Vasque http://vasque.com
Weight (size 9): 2 lb, 9 oz (1.16 kg)/pair
My weight (size 10): 2 lb, 11 oz (1.22 kg)/pair
Price: $110
Date manufactured: N/A
Date acquired: February 2004

Features (from the Vasque website)
• Upper: 2.0mm Waterproof Nubuck Leather
• Upper: Airmesh Nylon Fabric
• Midsole: Contoured Phylon
• Plate: Molded TPU Plate
• Outsole: Vibram Contact
• Lining: Nylon
• Footbed: DryTech
• Other: Gusseted Tongue; Padded Collar; Integration Technology

Field test
1) White Tank Mountains Regional Park, Maricopa County, Ariz. (terrain: mid-level desert, rocky scrub land, wash with dry waterfalls); 2) Mazatal Wilderness Area, Tonto National Forest, Yavapai County, Ariz. (terrain: 2,500-foot (762 m) desert to 5,000-foot (3,048 m) scrub pine, rocky, brushy); 3) Pajarita Wilderness, Coronado National Forest, Cochise County, Arizona (terrain: 3,800 feet (1,158 m) desert to 5,000 feet (1,524 m)); 4) Cactus Plain Wilderness Study Area, Mohave County, Ariz. (terrain: sand dunes stabilized by desert vegetation at 1,250 feet (381 m); 5) Cottonwood Point Wilderness, Mohave County, Ariz. (terrain: pinyon-juniper covered mesa tops ranging from 5,100 feet (1,554 m) to 6,500 feet (1,981 m)).

Let me state my bias up front. The most comfortable boots I own -- the most comfortable footwear I own, period – is a pair of custom-made boots I wore when I used to work wildland fires. Made by Nick’s Boots of Spokane, Wash., the boots are 8 inches (20.3 cm) high with lowers that are both hand-stitched and screwed on, and Vibram soles. A steel shank in them provides great support, and when tied right, they never slip on the ankle. Unfortunately, they weigh about 10 pounds (4.54 kg), which makes them too heavy to hike with. They’re also fairly inflexible, and when walking on the broken rock that’s so common to Arizona, the lack of flex causes my forefoot to hurt.

Since it’s impractical to wear those boots, I decided to try the Vasques after several long hikes in Merrell Mesa Ventilators gave me serious wet blisters on the toes and heels.

A note about my feet: They are “medium-volume feet,” perfectly average except that my right foot is a bit wider than my left. A note about my stride: I overpronate wickedly. More on that later.

The shoes fit fairly well out of the box. I wore them with a polypro liner and a pair of midweight SmartWool socks. I went a half size larger than normal, and the fit up front was good and comfortably snug on the side. Of all the boots I tried, this one had the most room in the toebox, which is important to me.

My “break-in” period was three days at work before a hike. Nary a problem with the feet, and, because of the ventilation feature of the shoe – 75 percent of the upper is ventilated fabric – I could actually feel the breeze blow through them.

On the trail in the White Tank Mountains, I found the boots handled the uphills very well. The Breezes use two speedlace anchors to pull the laces through and adjust the lower laces. The tensioning leverages the lower laces to pull them tight, though I still found that I needed to adjust the footlaces a bit more to get the perfect fit.

Downhill, the heels held up really well and the grooved soles kept free of the trail pebbles that screw up balance. I didn’t walk through any mud on any of my hikes, so I can’t really speak to the self-cleaning abilities of the soles. But I can say that there were fewer rocks and pebbles in the tread than I usually have.

I had no blisters on the 10-mile hike. Maybe more notable was that even after walking over sharp, split rocks for 10 miles, the four-layer foot protection in the forefoot – Vibram outsole, shock plate, EVA midsole, wicking footbed – hadn’t left any marks on the bottoms of my feet. On a hike of the sand dunes of the Cactus Plain Wilderness Area, the heel cup held well. The shoe was very stable.

Even on a very technical traverse over eroded granite boulders and rockfalls in the White Tanks, the Vibram outsoles seemed very sticky and held well. When I needed to stop a slide with a toe-stop, the sole held.

About the only negative off the first hike was that the uber-ventilated upper doesn’t really give any protection from desert plants, like those annoying stingers that seem to be on every piece of brush. A quarter-mile (~ 400 m) cross-country jaunt had me stopping every 30 feet (9 m) or so to pull stingers out of the shoes.

The second hike came the next weekend, a 20-mile loophike in the Mazatal Wilderness Area in central Arizona. Hot weather and rocky terrain. Also, a 51-pound (23.13 kg) pack, which should have put these boots designed for fast packing and light overnights to the test.

Ventilation was again very good. When the hot wind blew, I could feel it in the toe box. Going uphill and downhill on rocks, the ankle held well. In a few areas where the trail was overgrown, I had the stinger problem again, and had to pull stingers out of my upper foot every 100 yards (~100m) or so.

Footing was sure, and I didn’t slip going up or downhill, even on a precarious slope into a creek.

A truer test came on day 2, when we lost the trail and ended up in a dry creekbed. As I found out with my Merrells, the dry creekbed is the acid test for hiking boots. Maneuvering over mid-size rocks requires supported ankle articulation, moving over gaps requires good toe holds and just walking through the creekbed requires superior sole flexibility.

The Breezes succeeded, in varying degrees. On a few wobbly stones, my ankles gave way in the boots. The shoes soles remained sticky and some sort-of-technical rock negotiating was done confidently because of the sole grip. And the boots were tremendously flexible. We got out of the creekbed, came down a gravel scree – again, good support on a steep slope – and went cross-country to find the trail again. We found it. But not before I had to stop more than 20 times to dig needles out of my upper foot, where they had penetrated through the ventilator material.

I did sprain my ankle twice on the hike out, turning it on loose, broken rocks. I blame myself for trying to hike too fast on the terrain, but it would have been nice to have more ankle support (next time I pre-wrap and tape and we’ll see how that goes).

After I finished the hike, I noticed a considerable amount of wear and tear on the inside collar of each boot. The lining was worn away to reveal the foam pad inside. It’s not a huge tear, but it does make me wonder how well these boots will stand up over a season or two.

I wore the boots on three more hikes, mostly in desert terrain. The forefoot protection held up very well. The footbed only got more comfortable, and while hiking around on an incredibly hot day in the Cottonwood Point Wilderness, I noticed that my feet were much more comfortable – and drier – than they usually are.

However, the abrading along the inside collar of each boot continued to get worse with each hike. It turns out that as I overpronate, my right foot tends to strike the left boot cuff. A lot. By the end of the fourth hike – call it nearly 100 miles (161 km) underfoot – the top of the left boot cuff was so damaged that I could stick my index finger into the boot structure.

I’ve since retired them. With as much damage as the uppers have sustained, I’m afraid to wear them again in a rough desert climate. It’s unfortunate, because the footbed is in great shape, the boots fit great and feel great. If it weren’t for the tearing, these could become my favorite pair of boots.

Summary:
A good, lightweight, well-ventilated pair of boots for the price, but maybe not as firm in the ankles as I’d like. The biggest negative is the amount of stuff -- needles, stingers, dirt and tiny yet annoying pebbles -- that get in through the ventilation fabric in the upper.

I’m not sure if I would wear these again for a desert hike in which I knew I’d be going through bramble and brush. For a hike in a coniferous forest, though, these might be the perfect shoes.

Also, to see a $100 pair of boots fail so quickly is just disappointing.

What I liked:
Mid-sole flexibility
Sticky sole
Tensioning system
Room in the toebox
Ease of break-in
Ventilation system

What I didn’t:
Easily abraded on the interior collar edges
Ventilation fabric on the upper allowed sharp objects to penetrate
Could be more stiff and supportive on the sides of the ankles

Read more reviews of Vasque gear
Read more gear reviews by Judd Slivka

Owner Review by Judd Slivka

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