Customer Reviews La Sportiva Mutant

I have tested this shoes under various conditions. Note that I wear professionally made orthodotics and am 67 years old. 1.excellent when used to walk all day for multiple days in urban settings in Europe 2.very good for casual day hikes in Austrian alps 3.excellent for jogging on trails through the woods 4.very good for walking up steep mountain trails--not rock scrambling 5.not so good for walking down very steep hills (think black diamond trails but no snow) because they provide minimal lateral support 6.very good for trail jogging in Bear Canyon (Tucson) but not as sticky as low hiking shoes for running up and down the rocky parts of the trail and crossing streams on rocks. Breath very well and dried quickly after I slipped into the stream. Overall- light weight (good for packing) ; stylish enough to wear with black jeans when going out to dinner; breathable; and versatile for casual hiking and trail running. Soles could be stickier.

This shoe has a solid hold on your foot. The shoe is light and fast. The rock protection is as good as the Ultra Raptor. The shoe size is the same as others in the La Sportiva lineup.

tl;dr: GREAT rough conditions trail running shoes; the pull strap pulled off of mine after 6 weeks I live and trail run in the bay area, specifically the Oakland Hills. Our terrain is very steep and we have seasonal torrential rains, the result is that virtually all of my trail running is on steep trails with very poor footing - rocky, rooty, rutted trails with very little flat even footing. I think of it as ankle breaker terrain. I've always preferred running in trail shoes made by mountaineering companies vs trail shoes made by running shoe companies, and I'm always seeking a very stable shoe. The Mutant really ticks all of these boxes. It's a great shoe, with a tight fit that increases stability. If you read the reviews there's a lot of talk about the shoe's tongue, what this amounts to is that in combination with a nice lacing system (which uses slippery plastic eyelets which allow you to easily cinch up the laces), the shoe really does wrap around your foot and and create a solid fit, somewhat similar to a climbing shoe. I've been running these in the winter during the rainy season on rocky trails, and true to the advertising they offer great traction. It's worth mentioning that the lace pockets are a little weird and require you to tie your shoes on the side of the shoe vs the center of shoes, but once you figure that out and get used to it, it's fine. It's a good system and keeps the laces tidy. All of that said I ran less than 60 miles in these. As mentioned, they are a tight fitting shoe and are made with a big fat pull strap at the back to pull them onto your foot... well mine pulled right off. I talked to both Zappos and La Sportiva, both are willing to take the shoe back but neither have my size in stock at the moment, I'm really hoping that they get new stock in quickly as I want to keep running in these things. Fit: I'm an 11 in virtually any shoe, 45 fits just right in these. Lastly, these were not in included in Zappo's "Runlimited" program, but I connected with Zappos Support before wearing them and they agreed to extend the same 30 day guarantee. I needed that becase, as mentioned, they're a tight fit and I couldn't figure out, without wearing them a few times, whether they were just right or too small. These would be 5/5 stars if the strap hadn't pulled off of them.

This is the bomb! Perfect fit, AMAZING traction (wet, dry, pebbly, rocky, slick), great stability (the heel has just enough width, but doesn't overdo it), and the lacing system wraps the shoe on my foot as though it were a glove — my foot doesn't slide around inside while running technical paths. Happy; a go-to shoe for fell/mountain running.

This show is great but the sizing is bonkers. I usually take a size 11.5 or 12 US but in this show I take a 46.5 EU which equates to a 12.5US