Backpacking Boots
Salewa Alp Flow Mid GTX
$239, 2 lbs. 9 oz. (US men’s 9)
Sizes: US men’s 7-13, women’s 5-11
backcountry.com
In a continuing quest to find boots that handle any kind of terrain and conditions without baking my feet, I took the Alp Flow Mid GTX—which sport Gore’s newest, most-breathable technology, Surround—on a pair of hikes that push footwear to extremes: a mostly off-trail, two-day backpacking trip in early October in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, and a late-May dayhike up Garnet Canyon in Grand Teton National Park, slogging through a lot of soft, wet snow.