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Comment by grzm | Hacker News Reader

Cheers. What I’d like to find is something that’s zero-lift, warm enough for zero-degree weather, and handles ice well (your mention of silicone-based nubbies is what caught my eye). Kind of a niche (maybe impossible?) product, but my sandals don’t do me so well in the snow :)

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It depends which zero scale. For zero F I'd want a double-layer boot whether Sorrel-type, plastics, or high-end single layer boot.

For zero C (32 F), there are a lot of boots that are fine for day hikes. The main limitation of something like microspikes vs. full crampons is that they only work well up to a certain angle at which point they don't really work for hard ice.

Oh, duh, Fahrenheit (my bad). Yeah, I’ve got a pair of Sorel’s now. (My goodness, the number of styles have exploded since I was a lad!) Angle isn’t really much of an issue, the terrain is pretty flat where I’m at. Thanks for the advice! Appreciated.

I'm not sure Sorels are as good as they used to be. But, yeah, for not super steep hiking they're great (you can't really front point). And you can even carry an extra pair of liners for backpacking. For flat these days, they're great for microspikes. When I was getting started in winter hiking, it's what most people used. I only got plastics when I started doing some real mountaineering.

You can't really go wrong with Sorels especially for non-high angle hiking. I've actually been an instructor in winter hiking programs.

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