Danner is a local company and they used to have a great outlet store here (since turned into one of those high-priced pseudo-outlets that is now popular). Anyway, over the years I have owned probably a dozen pairs of their boots. Their work boots are usually in the decent-to-incredible range. However, I have had less success with their non-work boots. That made me wary of buying these, but I saw them WAY marked down, so decided to give it a try.

As a cheap pair of hiking boots, I rate them above average. I had to beef up the arch support as soon as I got them, because they provided zero arch support. And, I expected more ankle support. They are visually similar to the Lowa Tibet GTX trekking boot that has been my favorite backpacking boot for a few years. The Danner does not have nearly the the ankle support, so won't be using them with a heavy pack. I did try them with a 30 pound pack on a 30 mile hike that had a 3000 feet of vertical and a lot of ankle-breaker rocks. They were more than adequate for that.

So, since I got these Danners at a low price and they will make decent light-hiking boots, I give them 4 stars. If I had paid retail and needed to use them for backpacking, I would drop them all the way down to 1 star.