The skies on the west coast of New Zealand were gloomy. It’d been raining on and off throughout the day. I finally made it to Fox Glacier after being cooped up on a bus all day. Never minding the threat of rain, I dropped off my gear at the Ivory Tower Lodge and laced up my boots. With plenty of daylight left to kill and a chance of my glacier trek getting canceled, I decided to go see Fox Glacier as up close and personal as I could get.
Adidas is one of those companies that I associate with standard athletic gear: gym shorts, volleyball jerseys, shoes. Over the past few years, they’ve been building up an impressive team of athletes—Kevin Jorgensen, Sasha DiGiulian, Nina Williams, to name a few—that I respect and admire. I met up with Adidas Outdoor at Outdoor Retailer this past show to check out what they had to offer. The new Terrex Solo Approach Shoes caught my eye.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. For the longest time, I only had one pair of non-technical pants: my Baldwin Denim raw skinnies. I either lived in those or my Norrøna pants, because they were all I really needed. But when you only have two pairs of pants, sometimes things get tattered. Sometimes you want to mix it up. Sometimes you want pants for both work and play. That’s when the Royal Robbins Ranger Twill Pants came into my life.
I’m starting to think that approach shoes are it for when you need something that kind of does it all. Commuting? Check. Actual approaches? Yep. Hiking? You got it. Lounging around because you’re lazy? They do that too. With its retro design and delightful colors, the La Sportiva Boulder X shoes are something you can rock 24/7.
“What are those things”, said the kiwi inspecting all my hiking gear and pointing at my boots at customs. He’d never seen anything like them, and I guess I hadn’t really either. Futuristic, Tron-esque boots, what? When Arc’teryx broke into the shoe market last year, I was a little skeptical. Don’t get me wrong, they’re the creme de la creme of the outdoors. But footwear? Not really sure if they could pull it off. When the Arc’teryx Bora Mid GTX boots arrived at my doorstep, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to try them out.
