>>2782369This. You can go far in shoes or 4 to 5 inch lightweight boots and gaiters. I've gotten into the habit of also using barefoot shoes and just adding a proper insole so they technically aren't zero drop but a lot of their outsoles are just as thick as hiking boots if you negate the immense amount of foam they use in the midsole. Look at a pair of chonker danners and they just use a vibram kletter outsole which 1) is a zero drop outsole. 2) The vibram kletter outsole is only 8 mm or .3 inches thick.
So why pay $500 for a Limmer, $300 for a Lowa/Meindl/Zamberlan, or even $100-$200 for a Jim Green when you can buy Whitins off Amagoys for $40 and add an insole. Then you can buy Outdoor Research Gaiters who will replace them for life in the US.
I do prefer leather over cloth but when I discovered that foam boots weighed a fuck ton more with all that injected polyurethane/EVA also making for a clunky boot, and that a lot of boot outsoles are so fat in the heel that they cut out holes in them to lower weight I realized a lot of it was unnecessary bullshit unless you're climbing a mountain or something.
