Howlsthunder:
#keen_targhee_ii_mid_boots I've been a fan of Columbia hiking boots for some time, having gone through dozens of cheaper brands in my youth and finding them to all be shoddy excuses for footwear. I'd pretty much replaced most of my shoes with Vibram FiveFingers but this summer I had to have a pair of "real shoes" for work at a remote wilderness lodge. I figured if I was going to have to buy shoes, I would buy hiking boots/shoes. Having been introduced to Keens through several acquaintances I thought I would give them a try.
While I am still not a fan of shoes in general, these Keens went above and beyond my expectations. They look a little odd on your foot, making your feet look shorter than they are but the width was really nice and they gave my foot space and support in all the right spots. More importantly, it didn't feel like I was tying a brick of leather and rubber to my foot - it felt like a shoe.
I pretty much wore these for 4 months straight, alternating with a pair of FiveFinger KSOs, and wore them in a huge variety of terrain including gravel, dirt, grass, mud, brush, stone, beaches, mountains, and even volcanic ash and pumice, a notoriously bizarre footing. After the abuse I put them through, the leather isn't falling off, the laces are intact, the soles aren't worn flat, and the backs of the ankles are doing pretty well considering I am notoriously hard on my shoes since I'm often too lazy to tie/untie my shoes. I want to point out that these are very good at keeping fine particles out of your shoe - I hiked for 3 days across a volcanic valley filled with ash and though my shoes turned white in color and ash got into EVERYTHING else, it didn't get into my Keens.
The waterproofing is pretty good and lasted longer than all of my Columbia boots though it did degrade after awhile like most waterproofing seems to. I can't really compare it wicking ability to other shoes because I'd never spent NEAR as much time wearing one pair of shoes as I did this pair of Keens, and I was in them a LOT, doing a lot of work in 80?F weather. I wouldn't reccommend these for hot weather where your feet will sweat to death but they are great for cooler weather.
The laces seem to run a bit short on Keens - they are just long enough to tie normally or even "double knot" but not long enough to do a modified tie where you loop twice "around the tree". But the lace clips at the top of the shoe work so well that when my laces come undone I only notice when I hear them clicking against the sides of my boot; they're too short to drag on the ground and the clips keep the tension in the lacing so your shoe doesn't come loose.
I did have problems standing for long periods of time with these shoes but I think that would of been a problem no matter what I was wearing due to the nature of my job. But for outdoors, these shoes did great.
When this pair finally wears out and dies, I will definitely be replacing them with another pair of Keens.
Oct 29, 09
