www.sportiva.com, $175

The Good: Leather material is durable and breathable, toe box flex adds the the overall comfort, great ankle support.

The Bad: Leather is heavy, toe box is wide and lacing doesn’t extend down to toes for a customized fit. Leather shows salt stains and requires a bit more care after wet use to maintain flexibility and waterproof characteristics.

The Burly: The conditions we took these boots through were impressively rugged. Rough Cascade Granite, slick sticky mud, and as our Canadian guide said: “bush-crashing at it’s best”.

A solid set of boots is one of the most important requirements when venturing into the wild, and when that wild is the rugged Tantalus Mountains in Squamish, BC that is even more true. With wet vertical stomps through heavy brush, over moss-slicked granite, and some of the most diversely rugged trails in the area; boots can get shredded fast and soaking wet even faster.

La Sportiva’s Eco 3.0 GTX boots are GoreTex lined leather boots that handled the difficult terrain with ease. The aggressive traction held on tight to just about every surface, feeling almost sticky on the granite. The boot features an integrated tongue that keeps debris, solid lacing points, and a flexible synthetic material toe box area that flexes well during hikes for a more comfortable overall fit. In the end, they stayed dry and comfortable in the difficult terrain. Leather may not be the flashiest material to build a boot out of, but it is still the most durable. So if you’re hard on those boots, these are probably going to be able to hold on for the ride.