They say the best investments are in the things that separate you from the ground: beds, tires, and shoes. This has never been more true than for the modern arborist. Watch the video above to see Nick and Cale review the top 14 boots for arborists.

Hi, I'm Nick Bonner from TreeStuff.com and these are seven different boots available for the arborists today, we get asked a lot and I get asked personally at events, which boosts we recommend. And I certainly understand that arborists are looking for a boot that's going to be comfortable a boot that's going to protect them. Maybe a boot that offers chainsaw protection in a boot that's going to look nice, right a boot that's going to last, it's really difficult to recommend boots for individual people because each boot manufacturer one makes boots to a different last. So there's a different shape of the footbed depending on the style of their manufacturing or maybe what size footwear designers have. There's that and there's the fact that you know if I'm being honest and frank boots are kind of made like crap today. It used to be that boots were made with a last or a footbed that was screwed in to a soul that could then be unscrewed and have the new soul put on. They don't do that anymore. There's very few boot manufacturers that do that. Only one or two in the United States that I know of , and the cost is prohibitive, right it's it's extremely expensive. So all the boots that you see here today use what's called a concrete construction, which is what almost all shoes today are made with. And that's where the layers are glued together and that's where you get shoes that the laminate and just generally fall apart. Being an arborist we're especially hard on our boots, I know I was always, you know, shit kicking stuff down the curb, you know, using my boots as tools, and you know, basically just getting it done. So that's hard on boots. So I like to tell everybody, you know, don't expect much out of boots that they don't last a long time. And if you're really hard on your stuff, none of these boots are necessarily going to last you forever. So please take that with a grain of salt.

So we'll start here with these four. These are non chainsaw protective boots. The first and foremost This is one of our best selling boots ever. This is the Salewa Mountain Trainer. This is the GoreTex or GTX model, which means it has the gore breathable waterproof membrane. We've sold this in non GoreTex and GoreTex models very successfully over years in several different colors. The only downside of this boot in my opinion other than that it isn't chainsaw protective. Are these hooks the metal here is notorious. It does bend they do break. And we've seen hundreds of users over the years rip these out and force a hole in where this rivet is through and just lace the boots together. But these are extremely comfortable. They have a great Vibram sole, a really deep edge, high enough back usually to work with spurs for most people. A really solid choice. These are three more arborist specific models.

So this is the ArbPro clip n' step. This has been was the first model of shoe to have an integrated foot loop in it and it was originally built into kind of like the tongue area here. And now what they've done is they include a removable thing with a little rivet kit and you fold this over and you can pop it in and fold it here and pop it in and you can add this to either side foot that you prefer or you know just one and then have another for replacement. So overall a pretty comfortable boot, you will see that we start to see more of an over the toe rand which is this is the rand and that's designed to with foot locking in mind and to give extra traction so you'll see that actually start to get more as we go into these two. But a great boot from our pro clipping step designed specifically for arborists. I think it's kind of plain looking personally but it is a very, very popular boot people love it. So this is the Arbortec ascent. This is the an event which is like GoreTex it has a waterproof membrane. It's breathable. You've got a leather outer here you see an over the toe rand again, even more extreme going to help you get a little bit more traction when your foot locking. This boot is markedly less flexible than the first two. You see the clips open step is very flexible.

Salewa mountain trainer also really flexible. This is like really stiff. It's definitely a stiffer boot. It's heavier, you can really feel the weight in it. There's no hooks on this one, so it's definitely not going to break but it's also a lower heel, so that's not going to work as well for you. If you're climbing with spurs this to me feels like a solid boot for pruning, or maybe for tree climbing competition but maybe not the one that I would choose for every day where.

This is the ArbPro Evo 2 or do this has a clip and step feature reminiscent of the original one. It's dual loops. It's non replaceable, but it is reinforced because there's two so there's a level of redundancy there. And then this outer material it kind of like looks like like foam carbon fiber, but it's definitely like a fast woven material and it feels extremely durable and abrasion resistant. You can tell that the stitching in here is very high quality. You have a slingshot rand behind the heel like you see on some of these other ones here. And then you also see the over the toe rand. Again, there's no hooks. You do see really nice design features here where this is split to allow the top right to wrap in more and give you a really nice form fitting fit. So, I really like these. I think these are really nice. This is definitely our post flagship model. And probably one of the nicer boots that's made specifically for arborists, big heel. Nice hook here. Vibram sole, so definitely check those out. If you are looking for a non chainsaw protective boot. As we start to move into chainsaw protective boots. We've got three models that we're going to highlight here today.

We've got two by Haix and one by Arbortec. So this is the ArborTec Scaffell This boot has come in a couple of colors. It's the light if you're comparing against models that might be available other places. This is a big boot. These are all really heavy Vibram sole, nice in cut heel that's going to work well with spurs very high back. So you know this is going to be comfortable as far as it's not flexible at all You do have hooks on here, which I think on a boot this high speed lacing is going to be important. These hooks I don't have a ton of personal experience with them, but I can tell from looking at them that they're nicer than the selectable hooks and I don't anticipate that they'll break. We've also had this boot out in the field for a while and I haven't heard a lot of breaking complaints or reports on it. So really nice boots, obviously waterproof. This is class two EN it's got a bunch of numbers but this is the 24 millisecond or meters per second model. Here we have the protector ultra from ha. Haix is a new brand that we've brought on. They are European and you can tell that in their styling here. This one is really nice looking. It has a very classic look. It's a little less flashy, a little less technical, look at me, and a little more like, you know, fit in and kind of, you know, walk through Home Depot without feeling silly. No hook Right so it's a little shorter than the other ones, you can see that it's still going to be a perfectly good height for spurs. And you'll actually notice that there's increased abrasion panels back here to account for using whispers. Overall, I really liked this boot. Again, it's going to be waterproof, it's gonna have significantly, it's quick enough to show you here, it's gonna have that full tone like the others. So it is going to be waterproof, it does have the gore tex lining. And again, these are all going to meet the relevant standards and you can find out about all of that specific information on the website and compare it to your local standards. So these boots as well as all the boots here and everything we sell treestuff.com you can get for 7% off with the discount code online. Thanks for watching and please be safe.