Seconding Xero.
After New Balance abandoned their trail running customers, I ordered Xero walking shoes just to checkout the material and build quality of what was (to me) an unknown brand. They've been great, durable, and still look pretty new despite a lot of use.
When it was time for new trail runners, got those from Xero and they've been great.
14w flat and I love the Mesa Trail II Barefoot
I’ve worn Xero shoes for the past five years, and I love them. I wear the scrambler lows right now and they’re great. Mesa Trail II are excellent as well (and they make great yard work shoes after you wear em down disc
Golfing). I got two-three seasons out of them each
Altra Lone Peaks are significantly thicker than the Vivobarefoot shoes. I have an older pair and tried them for running, but didn't like it at all due to the high stack. I ended up using them as my winter and wet weather shoe.
I would try some shoes by Xero. I trained for and ran a trail ultramarathon last year in the Xero HFS II. It's a good all-around shoe which is decent in easy to moderate trails. I wouldn't wear them for anything too technical or extreme (very sandy, muddy, loose gravel on steeps, etc.). It has about an 11mm stack height, including insole. You could also look at some of the low/mid top hiking options like the Scrambler or Mesa Trail.
Otherwise, there
Are you me?
The only shoe that came close for me was the xero mesa, main downside is it’s a barefoot shoe so it’s super uncomfortable and my podiatrist has told me not to use them again.
I had to settle with the brooks ghost 2 and accept there weren’t any wide trail shoes. Only large toebox.
No one makes wide midfoot trail shoes. At all.
I have the same problem. I still can't find any boots that work. Merrells and Oboz do not work for me.
Xero Mesa 2 trail runners are the only shoe that I have found that holds my heel in the back on downhills without hurting my ankle. Everything else hurts my toes. They are minimalist shoes though, so they take some getting used to (they also run really small, so size up a whole size)
I hear good things about Lems, but haven't tried them yet.
Top Trail Running Shoes on Reddit
1
Mount to Coast
H1
85% positive of 177 users
Versatile road-to-trail, but struggles on wet, technical downhills.
robot_ankles
