Winter in Northern California brings with it two extremes–downpours and muddy trails in San Francisco matched with buckets of snow in the Sierras. To my surprise, the Ultra Extreme II boots from The North Face have served me well in both conditions. Waterproof and insulated, these comfortable winter boots take you from hiking the Marin Headlands in the morning to snowshoeing in Tahoe in the afternoon.
By Don Jurries
Interchangeability is a growing trend in the outdoor industry. Makers of sunglasses and snow goggles, such as Switch Vision, have designed interchangeable lenses so only one frame is required regardless of conditions. Now footwear brand Korkers has jumped in with an interchangeable sole for their range of boots. Called the OmniTrax Sole System, the actual outsoles of Korkers boots can be changed out when needed in order to participate in variety of different activities.
At Outdoor Retailer, I was given a pair of the new Fall 2012 Merrell Frost Glove boots to try. As the Frost Gloves are fully insulated and waterproof, what better place to test out these winter boots than hiking around Europe during one of the coldest winters on record.
Looking to build a significantly warmer winter boot but without adding weight, KEEN came up with the KEEN.WARM Plus Heat Trapolator technology. This underfoot loft insulation traps heat in three layers, giving your feet hours of protection from the cold.
As we mentioned in our retro trend post from Outdoor Retailer, Cushe Footwear has taken some style cues from the 70s for their recent line of winter boots. Part of the current Women's Universal Traveller Series, the Mork and Mindy boots are a modern, fashionable take on the space boots we wore as kids (yes I am that old). Cushe sent me a pair of Mindy Boots to test out this winter while tramping around the snow up in Tahoe.
