Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Lathrop & Sons branded boots?

I’m looking at ordering a pair of these. Does anyone have experience with these particular boots? Good or bad? My old HanWags purchased from them are about done. Thanks.

I have a pair of their Mountain Hunters and love them. I also bought and had the fit to the boots their proprietary insoles. Excellent product, great people.

The fact that L&S has been in business for about 2 decades, and yet so little is heard of their products,

Not an encouraging sign.

They are well known to mountain hunters. Being in business for two decades should be a sign.

They sell a lot of boots to sheep hunters, and are well established in that community. They are a fixture at the annual National Wild Sheep Foundation show in Reno every year.

They sell many of the other top mountain boot brands as well, and are experts on feet and boot fit. James and Steve Lathrop operate their boot business in the same building as their father’s podiatry practice. Both grew up helping in that business and understand feet, shoe/boot fit, and are active mountain bow hunters as well. Their boots are made in Italy to their specs, and the craftsmanship is outstanding.

They are very well known in hunting circles for folks that really use boots. I did a pair of hangs from them, and the boots and service was outstanding. Had to send em back in a couple of times for tweaks to fit my right foot but well worth the effort as there was no one else locally with that much knowledge.

I've bought boots and custom insoles from them, and I've had custom insoles made by two other pedorthists who specialize in outdoor sports applications.

Having seen what goes into gait analyses, foot molding, and then adjusting the footbeds after they're initially made I've got to say that making "custom footbeds" never having laid eyes or hands on the feet in question is not a valid concept IMO. My recommendation is to find a reputable pedorthist you can visit in person and have your footbeds made there.

So your not into a 300 dollar pair of mail order insoles?

Me either.

Maybe so,

but after 20 years, How many have actually seen, held or wore a pair?

very few.

They just came out with their own brand a little over a year ago. My point is that for a business to survive 20 years, they must be doing something right.

That is exactly why I visited their store and had them fit me up in person. Good counsel on a podiatrist visit.

Yep, mine were made with just a mailed-in trace of the outline of my feet, which looking back was not the way to go.

Their insoles are $53

Do you have experience with their Mountain Hunter boots?

correct me if I'm wrong but the tracing kit is 150 alone......Unless we're talking standard mail order 'superfeet' insoles for 30 bucks.

No.

years ago, I seriously thought about jumping in,

but mail order boots to me is a big NO.

I could drive there in a hour and a half, the complete deal would require hours of travel,

For boots of that style, my off the shelf Hanwags GTX fit like customs, for about 1/3 rd the price.

Make no mistake, if they could truly guarantee me their boots would fit me like Cinderella's slippers,

The cost is fairly irrelevant.

Just never took that leap of faith.,

I could be wrong, but nowadays most goods are just re-branded with a premium price,

Why do I doubt some Italian boot maker pauses his mainstream production line just because L&S orders a dozen pairs...(built to L&S specs) a year.

Again, I could be wrong.

You are. Again.

Some folks need to head to Walmart, they have Brahma brand I think, get a pair, hopefully close to the right size and get after it. That is all

I have experience with their service which has helped me and several people I know resolve fit issues. Their branded boots are new and do not come in my size so I have not tried them. We are talking about two different things. One is their fitting service which they will work with several brands of boots to find the best fit and the second is their branded boots themselves which you can just purchase as is. I got tired of trying $400 boots, breaking them in for 50 plus miles and not being exactly perfect. The L&S process is very expensive but I have a solution that works for me. I agree with the other posts that hands on is best but this is a viable option as well. Nothing is 100% but if you hike much, it is worth a try.

So far no one with first hand experience has anything bad to say about the boots the OP is asking about. He didn’t even ask about the custom fitting service.