Customer Reviews

Garmont Men's Garmont Vetta Lite GTX Hiking Shoe,Grey/Red,8 M US

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Let me begin by saying that I am a Certified Arborist. That being said... hopefully this review will be useful to everyone anyway. I used these for my job, which is climbing trees. And I will say to this day that working in trees is probably the best test of boot durability there is.

To start... sizing is pretty accurate. I normally wear size 10 1/2 but actually purchased size 10 (I wanted to try them bad enough that I was willing to take a chance on size, as a 10 1/2 wasn't available). They were a little snug at first, but not uncomfortable, and wound up fitting perfect after a few days of use. I have normal to just slightly wide feet and that fit was perfect as well.

They are very comfortable, weigh next to nothing, and are truly water/snow proof. The soles are super grippy too.

Now for my only complaint (and it's a big one). The stitching on both the inner and outer sides, at about mid-foot (ie. where your arch is), just above the sole, failed. When climbing trees your foot is frequently wedged in branch crotches (the v-shaped area where branches join) and thus there is alot of abrasion against the sides of the boot. I have no doubt that this was directly the cause of the failed stitching. But even if you were to be using these for hiking/light mountaineering you would certainly encounter similar situations with rock. Thus resulting the same way.

I would say that as long as you are not going to encounter the above said condition, these boots will fulfill all your expectations. It's a shame that Garmont missed the mark with the stitching, because otherwise this would be "the perfect lightweight tree climbing boot".

These boots lasted a bit over 5 months before the stitching failed. Other than that, the rest of the boot is still in relatively good shape.