I switched about 10 years ago, and also have some Vasque Sundowners. This appears to be a "gateway boot". grin I still wear the Sundowners locally if there is snow, or I'm doing trail maintenance, but never hiking anymore. They are great boots. I hike in New Balance (whatever is on sale) and don't really pay much attention if they are called "trail runners". I can't tell much difference between running shoes and 'all terrain' that New Balance puts on the labels. I play disc golf which has me in all kinds of terrain and running shoes work best. When backpacking, I rarely carry as much as 25 lbs. with water and all, and trail runners have 1) increased my mileage 2) drastically reduced blisters and fatigue. Only a few times have I had a thorn punch through but they never made it to my foot. That happens with boots too.

I have had hiking shoe soles come 'un-glued', including my first pair of Vasque Sundowners (the old rounded heal version). Texas heat tends to soften sole glue in the rocks, so I inspect that part of the shoe well before buying/hiking. I also learned to carry light weight sandals in my pack as 'spare tires' which combined with the trail runners still weigh less than boots. I've seen shoe soles laying in the scree, miles from any help and I don't want to end up like that. wink


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paul, texas KD5IVP