Bushwalk Australia

Hi all, I'm after a new pair of boots that will allow me to walk four seasons in Tassie predominantly in Cradle. My mate swears by having Gore-tex in his Scarpa's but I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are. The alternative I'm looking at is a full grain cowhide scarpa type boot that hopefully with plenty of wax will be waterproof enough but also breathe maybe a bit better?

Which way have you gone and why?

Cheers, John

I would take full grain leather over Gore-tex lining. But if you can get full grain leather with Gore-tex (i.e. Zamerlan Vioz GTX), all the better

Generally either use goretex or a snoseal equivalent. Snoseal treated boots tend not to breathe as well - this defeats the purpose of Goretex.
Goretex + Nikwax are synergistic.
Goretex does not breathe when DWR on the surface wets out.

Goretex boots tent to eventually leak with the abrasion of sand inside the boot.
Both can freeze solid overnight in winter.

Neither will let any liquid water run out of the boot.

I used snoseal and leather boots last time in tassie.

TL:DR
Neither is best for warm/summer weather.
Goretex is halfway between each.
Snoseal is more reliable in winter

you want gore tex in summer like you want a hole in the head... very sweaty...
non gore tex will dry out a lot faster...

depends where you are walking. Gore-tex boots are fantastic if it's unlikely that you will be walking in deep mud or water (ie some alpine areas or predominately rocky tracks). You CAN keep feet warm and dry for a time with gaiters and overpants even in the south west but they will get wet eventually in my opinion. if it is likely that your feet will get wet from capillary action or submersion than you are better off going non-waterproof in my opinion. i find trail runners with very firm fitting good qiuality socks the warmest and best combination when I know that my feet will get wet.
Both gore-tex lined and heavily snowsealed boots are effectively non-breathable so your feet will get damp from sweat anyway.

I recently bought a pair of Zamberlan Baffin's. Not because I wanted a GoreTex liner (I didn't), but because out of every boot available in Hobart these are what fitted me best.

As a baby boomer I inherited my parents frugal post-war ideas, buying heavy duty gear that would last a lifetime. I wore full leather Scarpa Mantas for years, until one long, hot day in the Himalaya, in a state of utter exhaustion and discomfort I had an epiphany. My gear would last a lifetime, but the weight of it was wearing out my joints and as a consequence my trekking lifetime would be much shorter.

Why lug all that extra weight around on my feet (and in my pack too) - it was simply detracting from my enjoyment of the walk.

The Mantas went in the bin when I got home, replaced by lightweight Zamberlains. The heavy Macpac Cascade went too, replaced by an Osprey Aether, heavy shell jacket replaced by a Marmot Precip, and so on through all my gear.

The Zamberlains didn't last as long, but I felt like a spring lamb next visit to the Himalaya. Later I replaced them with ZG Scarpas, which did a better job of keeping my feet dry walking over melting glaciers, and also in the mud on the OT.

The world has moved forward. Forget about heavy full leather boots. Your legs will thank you, particularly in years to come.

Oh, and when you are wearing double pairs of thick socks, you feet will get warm no matter what your boots are made from.

Strider wrote:I recently bought a pair of Zamberlan Baffin's. Not because I wanted a GoreTex liner (I didn't), but because out of every boot available in Hobart these are what fitted me best.

Good choice. My wife had a pair of Baffins, and they were a great boot.

It seems so many have a liner now that it would be hard choosing a model then wanting one without gore. Heard a new theory the other day that bacteria had some effect in the reducing the effective life of the laminate.. eating it.. (ie. especially when used in boots)?

i had a pair of boots unstitch at the ankle revealing the inside. the gore tex membrane was in tatters . gore tex doesnt last in footwear

wayno wrote:i had a pair of boots unstitch at the ankle revealing the inside. the gore tex membrane was in tatters . gore tex doesnt last in footwear

This is hardly a representative sample Wayno.

Anyway, if your boots have got to the point where stitching is coming undone, I'd say you've got a fair run out of them regardless.

every pair of gore tex footwear i've had, about a dozen, have started leaking well before the life of the boots was up. sometimes after a few weeks use.
seeing the gore tex damaged as it was in that one pair told me the damage had been a work in progress for some time to get to that stage....

I have a pair of Scarpa SL. I can do 3 day walks in varying terrains with feet remaining dry. They have no goretex liner and need to be sno sealed regularly. I am fairly sure they are about the only decent boot without a goretex liner these days.
I got them because I think they are the best boot available for rough terrain which is what Tassie walking is.
I think the goretex lined boots are fine, I suspect most boot manufactures use them as it makes it easier to waterproof a boot than the one peice construction that Scarpa uses in the SL.
As far as breath ability goes I think any full leather boot will have a breathability factor of zero so it makes no difference in this regard.
Go for a set of Scarpa SL is my recommendation

wayno wrote:every pair of gore tex footwear i've had, about a dozen, have started leaking well before the life of the boots was up. sometimes after a few weeks use.
seeing the gore tex damaged as it was in that one pair told me the damage had been a work in progress for some time to get to that stage....

Counterpoint.

Every pair of goretex boots I've had, if the gore works out of the box it has lasted the useful life of the sole, but not always the boot. I can think of 9 pairs off the top of my head.

That goes for my Scarpas and my Salomons too.

Once the sole is gone, they become my backup footwear used for daywalks, casual use and gardening.

I went from leather to goretex boots and there is negligible difference in breathability between the two types when the goretex is waterproof. The maintenence to keep the goretex boot waterproof is higher for sure. I was given another pair of goretex boots which I don't maintain as well as the other pair which breathe better but this means that they get wet quicker too, these are great to take on walks when you know you are going to get wet feet regardless as they walk dry a hell of a lot faster.

Usually when my shoes have worn out it's because the sole is worn, with both goretex it's going to be the upper that goes first. I'm going back to leather next time I buy a new pair of boots of that I am certain, nothing wrong with goretex they are what they are but when they are around the same money, or they were, I will just buy the pair that lasts longer for the same price.

I go with Goretex leather boots. I could never get snowseal or any of the other sealant products to work that well. The abrasiveness of spring snow would always remove the multiple coating I would apply in pretty short order and my feet would get wet. Goretex liners sure aren't a panacea. When conditions are wet enough the water gets inside eventually by one route or another.

I've had pairs that never leaked and I've had more than one develop a leak. The people at the local retail shop always insist that it is condensation from my own foot perspiration. But there is no way that cold water always at the same area near my toe on just one of the two boots would be explained by that.

Orion wrote:I've had pairs that never leaked and I've had more than one develop a leak. The people at the local retail shop always insist that it is condensation from my own foot perspiration. But there is no way that cold water always at the same area near my toe on just one of the two boots would be explained by that.

I've only done it once, but I have returned the leaking goretex boots and asked for them to be tested by the manufacturer. It took a while, but the boots were replaced, no questions. These were Salomon Fastpackers.

Doesn't Goretex manage the failure claim process? I think you have to push past the 'all knowing' store staff.

How do Gortex and other boot membranes fail? Given their "integrated" location, is there anything a user can do to alter their durability? I would have thought not.

columbia use a different technology called "outdry" no idea if its any better but the membrane is bonded to the fabric, they also use it in mountain hardwear packs and gloves, , whereas in other technologies like gore tex the membrane is loose and prone to friction from inner and outer fabrics

GPSGuided wrote:How do Gortex and other boot membranes fail? Given their "integrated" location, is there anything a user can do to alter their durability? I would have thought not.

Different flex properties I guess. Also, they probably have load points like the edge of the crease across the boot. Some have an inner 'sock' and others have the goretex inside the lining.

Not sure of their thickness and construction in the consumer space, but in my past work, used PTFE extensively and they are tough. Their porosity performance fails on over stretching but very difficult to break unless with a sharp instrument. But again, depends on their construction and thickness. Flex tend not to be an issue for PTFE.

i think it comes down to it being very thin in outdoor gear. for the sake of saving weight and keeping it flexibile, if not to maintain high breathability..... i read once gore tex was used for artificial ligaments at one stage, which would mean its pretty strong, but it gets damaged in outdoor gear without too much trouble.

There are many ways to use PTFE - lamination, coating, impregnation amongst others. I don't think PTFE is strong enough for the replacement of ligaments alone but they are well accepted as a biocompatible material and is good for coating amongst others. Whilst I don't think flex is one of the failure modes but think pressure point wear will do more damage eg. Wear from long toe nails, bunion and other bony foot protrusions. Just a thought and maybe more reason to find good fitting shoes and well padded socks.

gore tex seems to be used as much as a selling point of footwear as it is for having a useful function...
and so its hard to find as much range of hiking footwear that don't have gore tex.... so people get sucked into buying it almost by default in a lot of cases, all depends on the conditions you want to use the footwear in as to whether it will be of real use.... but the footwear designers dont seem to think so

GPSGuided wrote:There are many ways to use PTFE - lamination, coating, impregnation amongst others. I don't think PTFE is strong enough for the replacement of ligaments alone but they are well accepted as a biocompatible material and is good for coating amongst others. Whilst I don't think flex is one of the failure modes but think pressure point wear will do more damage eg. Wear from long toe nails, bunion and other bony foot protrusions. Just a thought and maybe more reason to find good fitting shoes and well padded socks.

It's legit, but an autograft is often preferred.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2322926/ wrote:The Gore-Tex ligament prosthesis is composed of a single long fiber of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) arranged into loops. Extensive mechanical testing has shown that the resulting ultimate tensile strength is about 3 times that of the human ACL and the results from cyclical creep tests and bending fatigue testing seem to identify Gore-Tex as the strongest synthetic ACL replacement in terms of pure material stability

ePTFE is also used as a synthetic blood vessel.



I personally think abrasion Is the cause for premature failure of most semipermeable membranes.

icefest wrote:It's legit, but an autograft is often preferred.
ePTFE is also used as a synthetic blood vessel.

I think you'll find there's durability issues when it was PTFE alone. Even doubling up on suture material can act as "temporary" ligament replacement.

PTFE as a vascular conduit and cardiac patches has been around for a very long time. Whilst a very strong and good material and able to sustain the load of blood pressure, I wouldn't compare it to the loads seen in a lot of the orthopedic applications.

Wow, smart cookies
I also suspect friction, the gore liner in my zambies was worn through around the ankle. though in the synthetic/gore shoes and boots the lining can look fine, yet the liner is not waterproof. Seam-lines? Or, in such an environment, is something at work in the laminate?

edit: Those little Flavobacterium and Nylonase have me intrigued, a first- world eater!!

thing is with footwear theres so much pressure coming into play as you walk, if grit can get in and work against the lining you only need pinholes in the membrane and over time you'll notice the water coming in and its definitely not dampness because you'l notices your socks are sodden in a certain area in the shoe...
and if you have hot spots in the shoe where theres more friction forces, thousands of strides add up and one you have a hole it can grow over time... what i've seen of gore tex in footwear it has the nylon tricot bonded to it on either side, theres a limit to how much that can stop damage especially if there is enough force to delaminate it from the gore tex...

Has anyone pulled their membrane lined old boots apart to see the failure mode? I wonder how the manufacturers test this aspect of their boots? What's their criteria? I am picturing the whole membrane would fail after the first hard walk and all these talk of membrane and expense are for nothing. Dreadful!

mine was torn into several different pieces,, wasnt in one particular spot, the tears were long.