[Music] welcome everybody to the final shoe review of the 2024 season we have a a twofer on this one because it's a I don't know what is this it's like a model series that's new to Northface we've got a couple different variations I have the Northface off tril TR Finn has the Summit Series off tril TR we figured we would combine this into a little bit of a comparison review because they're similar but they definitely have some differences we're going to Hash it out and help you figure out which one's the best shoe for you if it's any of them Finn how are you doing on this early December afternoon anytime we reach the end of a year I just feel the gravity of how much work we've done over the past few years on the channel great that we're still here I love uh being your Sidekick for it and um yeah feeling pretty good you know this is this is like I was trying to think of like where this shoe fits into what we've done this whole past year it's very futuristic looking I had my doubts going in like the use case was obviously going to be there and legit but I thought it would be the shoe equivalent of the segue we'll talk about it of course but I'm not so sure now I think that this is actually going to go beyond sort of that trail shoe equivalent segue uh characterization it's not gonna be like job and Arrested Development we're going we're going Beyond I'm glad that you got this The Summit Series because this one's I definitely I would say like the regular off Trail TR is more your consumer grade like probably for everyone but I really wanted to have you run in that because you live in gnarlier mountains than me you tend to go off Trail more than I do so I really wanted to see like does that have a place on in your Shoe Closet um we'll dive into that before we get going though just want to let everyone know that we got these shoes from Northface but we're under no financial obligation to say whether we like the shoe or not because we want keep these reviews authentic and beneficial for you no one will get to preview or watch this footage before it gets published to YouTube let's do a little rundown of the stats we'll do a little comparison as well so my pair the regular off Trail TR is $149 Summit off Trail TR is 199 my pair is well I'll do the weights in the same size so like on their website they're sample size nine my pair uh the off tril TR 11.7 o 332 gam the summit off Trail is 12.5 o 355 gram which like when you take that and put that up to like your size 12 you're probably rocking almost pound a shoe huh yeah definitely not a lightweight shoe I my pair is a size 10 and I just weighed it and it was 13 ounces on the dot so is this the heaviest shoe we've ever reviewed this might be I know we've had some twelves yeah what what competes what comes to mind I was trying to think of like like even like I was seeing like like even like the mafate but that's not actually that heavy yeah Caldera shoes are shoes are pretty light Caldera looks like it would be heavy and it is but it's not where you think it would be just based on appearance yeah it is a boat but it's okay well off off the top of the head I'm pretty certain that I've never reviewed a shoe that in my size weighed 13 ounces so they carry their weight well though yes that was definitely something like that I wanted to address is like don't just let the sheer number be a deal breaker uh one thing I learned is that the stack Heights of our shoes are different so this is just the midsole foam uh in terms of the stack height that's how North Face does their measurements my pair is 18 millimeters in the 4 foot 24 mm in the heel for a 6 mm drop yours is 12 millim in the 4 foot and 18 mm in the heel for also the same 6 mm drop but you have 6 mm less of mitsel foam underneath what you do gain though is lug depth so on the regular off tril TR 5 millimeter lugs underneath yours is seven I believe so seven you get a you do get a little bit of cushion or like some sort of dampening effect from the rubber um the uppers are similar but have some differences uh I think our the front half of ours are the same so we both have this cool looking futuristic Matrix Matrix design it's what Northface is calling an overlast design so the the material goes over the for foot and uh or over the midsole foam and it connects in underneath the midsole in between the outsole they're not the first to do this I mean one of the most popular trail shoes of all time the Solomon speed cross also an overlast design but I think this is the first overlast Matrix material reason why they do that is uh just the angle at which the upper kind of attaches in to your foot because it goes all the way around the midsole creates a different type of squeeze around the forefoot which is really going to help with that lateral movement it also helps protect the midsole from sidewalk Cuts because this Matrix upper is incredibly durable also uh have a pretty significant like rubber sidewall as well which is to help with stability and durability very substantial toe Bumper in the 4 foot as well um you know a lot of a lot of hike elements we're noticing in this shoe where it starts to differ I'll go with the regular off tril first I have a much more traditional back half of the upper so midfoot to heel is kind of like a nylon rip stop type material it's definitely on the thicker more durable side classic lacing system pretty thick padded tongue and uh kind of medium padding in the ankle collar and the heel little pull tab we do have a rigid heel cup yep yours uh differs quite a bit so you got the full you got the full ankle treatment huh yeah we've got the as you can see the single boa dial Li system here which we can get into when we're talking about the the fit later I suppose but yeah boa fit system uh perform fit wrap I think they're calling it uh I guess part of the value prop there is just like improved ankle stability and then what do you call this like they're they're saying on this I'm reading this off the site a protective shroud that's like this type of material here it's like like the built-in Gator um is that um is that like top part is that two different layers it is you can see the separation here like you can see the the the the integrated what do you call this here let me pull this up okay yeah yeah you can see the Matrix four foot wrap underneath yeah and then the gator yeah and when you crank the dial down like can you tell like where the straps are or like where the lace part of the bow dial is going you like on like the speed lands and the Ultras that we've done that have bows you could see like where where you're getting locked down because that only has one dial so I'm curious where like I'm G pull this open for you you can see those stps s and you can see the wiring you would just have to be like actually really intentional like almost pulling the shoe apart to see that action take place but okay one of the things that I I assume Northface is trying to do with the design of the shoe is make all of that look like it's behind the scenes and it's just this single dial here like you're seeing the entire like lever system whatever you want to call it at play in a speed land I think even in that Merill shoe that we didn't review the agility peak one but yeah no this is the way they've layered all this material on it all is behind the scenes and you really have to be intentional about kind of like pulling back the material to see what's going on okay does yours have a a rigid heel cup or is it floppy back there rigid okay pretty rigid okay so those are probably the main main upper differences you know one's definitely going for the more mountainy mountainy feel uh definitely is on brand with like the Summit Series type name with the North Face yellow and everything like that it's pretty cool looking the midols are a pretty basic Eva actually and now that I'm learning is the biggest difference is that mine's just thicker because I remember texting you and be like dude I'm surprised at how cushioned the shoe is and I get mine act mine is more cushioned than yours turns out um which again makes sense one thing I'm really curious about because if you go on the Northface website it says that this shoe was built in close collaboration with the Northface athlete team I'm assuming that a lot of the people in that room were Trail runners in our Sport and I'm just so curious to know exactly what they felt like they were missing from the Northface Trail like traditional Trail shoe line but also in between that traditional hiking boot to kind of fill the Gap because this is so like one of my first feelings was like this was so Niche but also in this era where like gear is getting ultra light and we're finding that trail shoes can be a use case for almost any like Wilderness setting underfoot this like the lane for this even before trying it on felt like super super super incredibly narrow so to bring it to is really interesting to me yeah that's actually a good point which Northface athletes tested that shoe because I could see a scenario where they are putting that shoe on some of their climbers and you know being like if you use this as an approach shoe yeah or you know you're transitioning from like wall to wall like maybe there's how much input like what percentage of input was from their Trail Runners versus their skiers great question you know Expedition type people cuz North PH does have all those athletes as well so maybe this is a trail shoe that wasn't 100% influenced by just their trail running team um just a theory not sure yeah has there actually like when we really think about it have we actually been giving up quite a bit from a performance and protection standpoint when we went straight from hiking shoes to trail shoes in a through-hikers context like was that just way too Stark a tradeoff and are we actually reintroducing a little bit of a middle ground that actually has more use case than I might imagine with this shoe yeah it is kind of interesting like the verbiage for shoes like you can hike in a running shoe but God forbid you run in a hiking shoe I know like it doesn't go the other way right right maybe this is well I guess they are advertising this is a running shoe um I remember when I was on the at in 2014 it was sort of there was like a passing of the Baton happening gear wise it was sort like all these ultra light like Ray Jardine's Vision was finally coming into fruition and companies like zpacks were out there and the ultra Lone Peak was all the rage but there was still like yeah half the people on the trail were like steel frame packs flannel shirts and vasque hiking boots and the other half were like zpack solox tents uh short shorts Ultra lone Peaks it was you know hocus speed gos really funny it's an interesting mixture our outsoles are the same lug design and pattern full coverage North Face's own in-house surface control rubber biggest difference is yours are the six 7 millimet lugs mine are five definitely one of the more if not the most rugged outsoles that we've tested on this channel what kind of testing mileage did you get into it and and I guess it's we both kind of were texting each other before this review too or when we first got the shoes where it's like we're mostly counting by hours not so much mileage because this is one of those shoes where you might not get a lot of miles but you could certainly get a lot of time so what' you get all right uh six run hikes all on steep or relatively and or I should say and or relatively technical train here in the Salt Lake area so if you are familiar with this area summited mount wire Mount Olympus grander from the west side and from church Fork Al together looking at stra 23 thou just over 23,000 fet of total elevation change so that includes up and down um and that was important to me because I was able to test this shoe in a pure like uphill hiking context but also to kind of casually pick up the pace slightly and run downhill um with this boa dial you know we did we actually I tested this when we had the L portiva was it like the Jackal 2 boa inhouse um I was changing up the boa dial a little bit in terms of tightness loosening it on the uphill uh tightening it on the downhill to just see how lockdown felt and um yeah that was important altogether about 15 hours I mean if you if you know those Peaks you know it's kind of a grind especially in the winter to to Summit but um I was trying to get this in a combination of like the nastiest the gnarliest but also relatively safest conditions and those Peaks are solid on the was front here for that so felt like I put it to use where it was intended yeah I mean certainly sounds like it especially during this time of the year like you know testing through basically most of November and into early December dude I think for the first time ever I I outverted you what' you do I got in uh 14 and a half thousand feet of gain oh my God Pete's Punisher the testing um no I actually didn't go up pizza at all um I went up another one called robs which is just as steep but I did that one a couple times I also went off Trail and just like took some like proper not property like Forest line like Fire trail which just cut straight down and up the hillside but um 52 miles that's probably why I outverted you because I went more so your vert per miles still higher 10 hours 10 hours 52 miles 14 and a half thousand feet of elevation gain equal amounts loss um all all here in Ashland but I did get to hit dry Trail wet muddy Trail I got some snow little bit of ice so I got to test a pretty good amount of trains and I I did take it on some pretty steep stuff as well so I got to I really tried to take the shoe where it was supposed to be taken and uh yeah I developed an interesting relationship with this shoe because I I really thought I really thought I was just I thought I was gonna hate it because it just seemed like such overkill for anything that I do from a trail running standpoint but kind of moving on to the fit and upper breakdown I was so pleasantly surprised with how comfortable the shoe was when I put it on it seems like generally these types of like technical scrambly mountain shoes are just not that comfortable I thought mine was super comfortable what did you think um because you know mine has the more normal upper so I was able to just like put it on and tie it up it felt like a normal shoe with a matrix 4 foot but then a super comfortable uh back half what about you incredibly comfortable shoe I mean it is like I'm just looking at the spec sheet again here it's a pretty traditional Eva midso so just from like a feeling standpoint underfoot it's it's not particularly cushioned or or responsive it kind of sits squarely in the middle of everything but for what I was expecting coming in it actually felt like kind of plush in a weird way like it was a really really comfortable ride I actually like I didn't even include these miles in there but I did a lot of like running errands in these shoes like I would go to the supermarket because it was such a weird fashion statement I kind of was just walking around and I was like people people people my eyes are up here you know yeah oh dude I'm sure Whole Foods Finn milans akaa Salt Lake City trail running Jesus in his yellow North Face boots I mean if you want to start a conversation just wear these at Trader Joe's and you know people will be stopping you and your tracks I had a baby on my chest and I was wearing these things and it was just dynamite oh my gosh I bet you were just fighting them off but incredibly incredibly comfortable um and you know you were talking about sort of like does the does the Baseline weight of the shoe does the Burl of the shoe prude any of those like feelings of comfort and like it it also it wears its weight really well too and I think you know one thing that I was going to get into when it comes to like performance I know we're kind of jumping around is you think about like the overkill underkill argument I personally equate this very closely to undertrained overtrained I would rather be you know like 10% under trained than 1% overtrained similarly with shoes especially For What It's Made for I would rather be like 10% Overkill than even 1% underill you know yeah so you get that uh confidence of just knowing what you have is g to work exactly and and the way they put the materials together on this shoe I do think it it it it's distributed really thoughtfully and I don't necessarily feel I mean you feel the weight a little bit inevitably but I didn't feel it like I thought I was going to and it also shocked me in terms of comfortability it's really hard to get into this shoe like I was pulling this heel tab quite a bit I had to really sit down and focus and I had the same issue with the Hoka tecton X3 but once you're in this shoe it's um I wasn't like you know angling to take it off as soon as I possibly it wasn't wasn't like uncomfortably tight yeah or anything like that one thing that uh I should mention that I was pleasantly surprised about too which I just couldn't tell from the pictures of the shoe was uh the width and the volume in the for foot was actually very adequate yep I I I had no issues with with you know the toe box is a little pointy we kind of had the similar feelings with the Ultima 500 where the toe box was like a little pointy looking but then when you're actually in the shoe the platform was so wide and it had such a high volume of material in the forfeit that it ended up being okay I think this fell into a similar category as well yeah where it does look kind of pointy but there's enough volume there where it's going to fit a pretty wide variety of foot types especially for you know people who have been looking for a technical terrain shoe where all the other ones are just way too narrow this is definitely one of the more uh generous fitting for foots and it didn't sacrifice lockdown or anything like that and I think a lot of that's due to this overlast Matrix upper the lateral stability of the shoe awesome I mean I was like really going on off cambered stuff and trying to like take switchbacks really hard and my foot just did not slide left or right at all um I think this is a really well executed upper yeah and I also just to add on to your just like volume point I it does obviously narrow towards the midfoot and the heel but there's still a good amount of volume there as well um yeah I just think it's it's I I think it's one of those shoes where when I think about again the intended use of the shoe you're in the wilderness you're in the back country you're probably on sort of an expeditionary type outing you're going to need this shoe to fit not just at Hour 1 but likely hour 14 hour 17 18 so you're going to need some some room to grow into the shoe if your foot starts to just you know yeah um inflame so I also like that there's there is volume for that respect as well maybe even hours 58 59 and 60 if you're running Barkley exactly when we saw this last year because I think they had this very briefly at tr23 I was like that this is the bar shoe we were like this is the Barkley shoe for sure this is the Barkley shoe did yours feel pretty true to size exact true to size yep yeah same with mine my 10 was SP on underfoot you know I said before I was pleasantly surprised at how much cushion there was and running in it it like you had said it kind of doesn't really feel overly mushy or overly responsive because it's pretty basic Eva that's how I felt too which um then again with like the expectations of like coming from like L bivas and other more minimal shoes this then felt so cushioned and yeah I was like oh I could I could were some of the other ones like the like the LA sportiva Jackal and stuff I was like I don't know if I could spend a significant amount of hours in that shoe this I feel like I could spend a very significant amount of hours in just because of how there is enough underfoot where I could be out on a all day multi-day type Expedition um you know not too rockered a little bit the transition's actually pretty smooth the only major thing is like it it is heavy to the point where like I'm not doing speed work in it like I found it was like hard to run fast like I had to put forth more effort to run fast in this shoe but when we're talking like your all day Ultra Paces you know got the kind of the pendulum effect started going with my feet and it actually I thought it was pretty smooth um yeah I'm curious to hear your thoughts and then we'll talk you know use cases I've got a good use case race for the shoe now too okay what's that well should I wait until the end can I say now yeah just go for it what do you got the winter spine over in the UK If I got the gortex version of this shoe I think this is in addition to Barkley an ideal shoe for the winter spine race where you're how long is that 100 268 miles on the penine way so it's multi-day you know this is the race that Jasmine Paris won Jack Scott who's in cocodona this coming year he recently won it last year um you're going through all sorts of the craziest winter conditions I wouldn't wear this partic I would wear the gortex version because it's waterproof and you're going to go through a lot of like bogs and stuff on that course but I only that was top mine because I really wanted to do that race one day and I was like what what's a good spine shoe this I think is a good spine shoe as well okay since we're talking use case scenarios the use case scenario that I that actually came like very front of mine for this particular one through hiking this is my this would be my new multi-day through hiking shoe um I texted you I think maybe even after like the first or second run I was like dude this regular off tril is a Brooks Cascadia on steroid it's like a little more cushioned it's got an even more durable out soole the upper is absolutely bulletproof and it's very comfortable it's like I don't why wouldn't I hike the at or the PCT in this shoe um you know it's breathable enough I I just don't see how this upper would fail me before the midsole or outsole does but then you know the mids protected by the upper this outsole is massive like dude I'm hiking I bet I'm getting I'm getting at least a th000 miles of hiking out of this shoe before this before putting on the shoe I would have disagreed but now I agree the big change for me that makes me that puts me in your Camp is this is a more breathable upper than I thought it was going to be I thought just looking at these specs looking at these materials that this shoe was not going to event I'd be overheating 10 20 minutes into the Run it' be the shoe equivalent of wanting to take off your your rain jacket or sweatshirt after you've begun to run in the cold and now you're all warmed up but no this thing actually the the non- gortex version of this shoe vents well pretty solid yeah the other use case that I found for this shoe which we had said that in the Cascadia 17 was you know you wear this shoe for a few days and then you go put your tekon X3 on your agravic speed Ultra it makes those shoes feel awesome this is a great daily trainer to keep you grounded and not not get spoiled by some of the trail super jues and I actually I I think that's important like in my quiver I'm always gonna have you know a very a boring shoe yeah yeah and I I actually found that this shoe is really easy for me to just log all of my easy miles in um like yeah it's heavy it's kind of cumbersome but it's very stable it's very comfortable it feels like it's going to last forever so it's like yeah I can I can log miles no problem in this which also led to like durability this feels like a thousand M shoe oh 100% yeah I mean the you and I were saying Offline that we're not sure what which upper is more durable the the norta like really any shoe in the norta lineup at least 0102 or or this upper right here like I got the um this sort of Matrix 4 foot wrap which I think is again we should insert the uh the Vince McMahon leaning back meme for just like ideal upper here uh it's well yeah I mean you got your ankle Gator your boowa dials and your Matrix I mean I don't know that's Chucks off every box on your wish list but you know one of the impressive Parts about everything that you get with the shoe and the durability is the price like my pair this is 150 bucks I think that's how much a Cascadia is yep these and these for 200 yeah yeah which is you know $100 cheaper than a a norta I mean I guess we're just that's just easy math if you got two-thirds of the mile of the N or two-thirds of the mileage of the norta then you get similar value but you know I think this regular off tril TR for $150 if you're okay with the weight this might be one of like the value shoes of the year um like this is just like a great like mud clomper wintertime like junk mileage kind of trainer uh you know it's super comfortable like hiking ups and running Downs you know for all those people who are starting to get their roffa training in right now I think this is a great shoe for that 100 perc and I mean I like I know it's relative like quote unquote this is a boring sort of traditional EVA midsole foam but I think the positive trade-off there is it's predictable like there's no Breakin required it's going to be a pretty stable ride from the moment you put it on first run probably 20 25 runs down the road like I think there's a there is a durability angle to the midsole as well like I I think that this upper is bulletproof like you said for probably 750 to A Thousand Miles but I think you might be able to get more out of the midsole than you would you would expect yeah I don't think Northface chose an Eva midsole to cut cost I think they chose an Eva midsole because it's the correct material for this shoe um I don't believe this should be a super critical Eva or a uh you know super foam that seems really dumb to me like it this should be a boring foam that doesn't have a ton of bounce so I think in that regard the uh the cushioning balance is great with this shoe so yeah overall I was I was very pleased with this shoe I think I I think I'm going to hold on to it and you know bust it out every once in a while when I just need something to like reset my like shoe expectations for for things and then also if I'm ever doing some big vert this this I think this is kind of my big vert Mountain shoe now we we should have some sort of tagline or category for when a shoe is worthy of being positively archived like oh yeah like I want this for posterity I want this for like I want this I want this shoot in my locker for the next I want to put this like I want to like bury this in a box and pull it out 20 years from now and be like oh yeah like that was well in 2023 you know you had the the high top lasportiva and you that for pretty much a whole year does does that Summit off Trail replace it oh yeah I mean so going back to the spine I have been wanting to do the spine for a while actually think I'm going to pull the trigger and sign up for the January 26 event so I will definitely be bringing this with me and I'm gonna see if I can access the the gortex version as well all right you heard it here first Finn malanson 2026 January spine race be there be square yeah thank you North Face thank you North Face