I bought a pair of Golite Calmus shoes this week to see if they would make good camp and recovery shoes. They have a very interesting design that looked like it would be worth a try and at about 9.8 oz a pair they looked perfect. I ordered them from Zappos.com and anticipated their arrival. Zappos is a fantastic merchant to purchase shoes from because they pay for all return shipping and you can return products to them anytime within 365 days of purchase. That’s just incredible service. The price of these shoes is $89/pair.

The shoe is distinctive in several ways. The clog-like construction cuts weight by eliminating the entire back of the shoe. Holes in the sidewalls and highly breathable mesh fabric over the toes help your feet dry quickly if they get wet or after a sweaty day in boots. The foot bed is also easy to remove and the foot bed well is deep enough to accept a foot bed from Superfeet, if you want more support.

My Golite Calmus shoes arrived from Zappos.com today and I’m not satisfied. I’m going to return them.

First off, they are too small. I wear a size 9 hiking boot and I purchased a size 9.5 shoe. They’re too short and the heel of my foot sticks out the back even when I’m not wearing socks. This means that they are a full size too small.

Second problem: the lacing system does not let your reduce the width of the shoe at the bottom of the tongue. Tightening the laces scrunches the top of the tongue area but not the bottom, so there is no way to reduce the shoe width uniformly. The result is that the shoe is very tight at the top and too loose at the bottom. There would be a lot more control over this if the lacing system used normal laces.

Third problem and a death blow  for me, is deceptive advertising on the Golite web site. Golite site says that the Calmus weighs 9.8 oz. But they don’t mean that a pair of shoes weighs 9.8 oz. Instead one size 9.5 shoe weighs 10.2 oz. Golite has always prided themselves on accurately weighing their gear for the ultralight and lightweight hiking community. However, they were acquired last year by Timberland and those values were obviously not carried forward. This is the kind of thing that really pisses me off. For example, I bought a Marmot pounder sleeping bag last year that was supposed to weight 16 oz, and weights over 20oz.

Related posts:

1. Waldies Aruba - Lightweight Camp Sandals
2. Hiking Gaiters
3. Golite Mesh Hat
4. Waldies Camp Shoes
5. Golite Pinnacle Backpack