Before I bought my Trango Alps in 2009, I tried various 4 season boots. Mostly, they had been disappointingly uncomfortable or not robust and stiff enough. “This time,” I thought when I bought them, “maybe I’ve cracked it.”
I took the Alps on a peak-bagging trip to the central Highlands of Scotland in early March 2009. Beforehand, I’d only had the opportunity to wear them to walk to work a couple of times and for a ‘family walk with my kids (16 miles total), just to see if they were going to rub anywhere. They were fine, but obviously I wasn’t using them ‘for real’.
On my trip, I lugged a big pack into Culra bothy, where I based myself for a week, making trips around and over the local Munros. Conditions were typical for early spring up there; anything from powder snow to saturated bog underfoot, snow, rain and sun at various times, very windy most of the time, and often poor visibility on the summits.
On the day with the best weather, I broke trail through deep drifts to the base The Lancet, climbed it (some devious route finding to avoid steep, very soft snow and front-pointing on snowed-up, rocky, frozen turf were required), traversed four Munros and broke trail through more snow to get back to base, covering 16 miles in total. The other days were shorter, but still very demanding. I covered about 85 miles over 8 days.
The Alps were excellent! Despite my feet being wet almost all the time (from water running down my legs in very wet weather early on and a river crossing later), they didn’t rub at all. I had one heel blister at the end of day 7, which I know was just from sheer foot pounding (if the boot had been rubbing, it would have burst).
Since then, I've not had the chance to do anything as major as that trip in them, but I love using them on even on relatively easy walks, when a lighter boot would do, because they're so comfortable.
I’m not sure that the ‘Impact Breaking system’ (IBS) sole with the extremely funky tread helps me keep control on steep, slippery ground better than any other deep, chunky Vibram sole, but it certainly is a good sole unit. Some of the other boots of this type have a sole with a shallower tread and a treadless ‘friction patch’ at the front; adding to their performance on dry rock, but definitely not as good on the messy, muddy UK mountains as the Alp.
So, I have cracked it: they have the perfect combination of comfort, toughness and stiffness for me.
(Written by: JastheBass)