Here's a great look at what the Garmont Vetta Tech GTX hiking boot can do.
It's a fact of life that much of the outdoor gear we know and love came to us via the recommendation of a friend or loved one. Suggesting or gifting some item for use outdoors, whether hiking, fishing, camping, or hunting, is great. Each time they use it, they'll think of you. That's the case with the pair of Garmont Vetta Tech GTX Boots that I received for review.
Instead of testing a pair for myself, I was lucky enough to have Garmont send a pair of their ladies hiking boots to let my life partner try. As an outdoorswoman, she knows her way around the woods, trails, and lakeshores of our home county and is as good on her feet as she is sitting at her piano.
In fact, since she still calls Manhattan her workplace, she even agreed to wear them in this most urban of settings, to walk from her apartment to work and back in the concrete jungle. The results were amazing, but she got good intended use out of them in the wilderness as well. How's that for mixed terrain?
Here are the details that make the Garmont Vetta Tech GTX hikers so great.
Garmont Vetta Tech GTX Specs
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Craig Raleigh
The Vetta Tech GTX women's hiking boot is lightweight and has a versatile, mid-cut, 1.6 mm suede leather upper that features a GORE-TEX membrane for durable waterproof protection. One of the best features comes from the GORE-TEX extended comfort design, which optimizes climate comfort in warmer conditions, during higher activity levels, and on multiple surface hiking adventures.
The interior heel lock fixes the heel into its own pocket to help prevent heel slip, along with lace-to-toe closure for better climbing performance in elevated, uphill positions, giving it a customized personal fit. The eco-friendly Ortholite FrameFlex Mid footbed features a rigid and stable structure for soft cushioning which fits well with its Michelin "off-road" outsole.
The tread design and its Fiber Lite inserts offers a lightness, flexibility, durability, and traction that gives it an outstanding performance in any environment. Running shoes they are not, but they have more of those flexible features than, say, a pair of mountaineering boots.
Wearing the Vetta Tech GTX
My partner Katie wore the Vetta Techs for a month and loved every moment. She admired the look, the feel, and the outright lightness of these boots with every step. Katie Bull stays busy as a vocal coach, jazz vocalist, environmental advocate, writer, producer, and teacher at the Atlantic Studio NYU/Tisch School of the Arts in New York City.
She said they "fit like a glove," especially based on the fact that Garmont suggests getting a half-size larger than your normal shoe size.
"My foot slid right into the boot and it hugged my ankle perfectly. The uppers are more than strong enough to handle hiking and walking, even in the city, but the amazing thing is that it allowed my ankle to articulate and keep its posture whether on rough ground or on the concrete," she told me.
As for their overall warmth, they worked for the conditions she wore them in, but they're uninsulated and would require some extra socks should the temperatures drop. They kept her feet dry and the traction was one of the shining elements.
"I think that's what I liked the best about the boot," Katie said. "The boot is comfortable to wear, but it really grips the ground, especially on uneven terrain."
She'd definitely recommend them to other women looking for good hiking shoes. "The price point seems about right," she told me, "I would say that I love the look of the grey and green together, but it will show the dirt. I guess that's what hiking boots are made for though!"
The Last Word
It's not so hard to find well-fitting boots, or boots that just look good, but finding a pair that does everything the Vetta Tech GTXs do is rare. We all want to test outdoor gear for ourselves, but the onus is on us to know what it is that we are looking for before we buy it.
With that said, the more you know about what it is you need, the better the Garmont Vetta Tech GTX Hiking Boots look.
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