This one gets argued about constantly, and we’re not going to pretend we sit in the middle on it. For most of what our customers actually do, we think trail shoes have already won, and boots are holding onto a reputation they stopped fully earning a while ago.
The ankle-support case, examined properly
The traditional argument for boots is ankle support. It made real sense when boots meant stiff, full-leather construction that genuinely restricted movement at the ankle. Most boots sold today aren’t built that way. Modern boots use softer, more flexible uppers and midsoles because nobody wants to walk in a rigid leather shell anymore, which is a reasonable thing for manufacturers to have done. The problem is that the stability claim depends on the rigidity that comfort improvements have been quietly removing for years. A boot with real give and flex in the upper still lets your ankle roll. It’s just rolling inside a slightly taller cuff.
The one genuine advantage boots still have
Keeping water out, for a while. A gusseted boot with a higher cuff holds out rain and puddle splash longer than a mesh trail shoe, in short or moderate wet conditions. That’s real, and it’s the strongest point in the boot argument.
Why that advantage falls apart in the conditions we actually design for UK mountain weather doesn’t usually offer short or moderate wet conditions. It offers sustained rain, the kind that doesn’t let up for hours. Once it’s genuinely pouring, water gets into a boot anyway, over the cuff, down the leg, through a saturated sock, and then it stays there, trapped inside a shell that isn’t built to drain or dry quickly. A trail shoe lets water in sooner and lets it back out just as fast. Over a long wet day, we’d rather have wet feet that dry out than wet feet sealed inside a boot holding water against them.
Where boots still make sense
We’re not arguing boots are pointless everywhere. Crampon compatibility on genuine winter terrain, and carrying heavy, awkward loads where ankle fatigue becomes a real risk, are both situations where a stiffer boot earns its weight. That’s a specific use case, not the default case most hikers are actually in.
Where we land on it
For long mountain days, fastpacking, and the kind of varied terrain our customers move across, we think trail shoes give up less than people assume and save real weight and fatigue over a long day. The ankle-support argument hasn’t kept pace with how boots are actually built now, and the wet-weather argument only holds up
until the weather gets properly bad, which in the UK, it usually does.
Over and Out