These boots were wonderful until the souls actually split in half after a couple of years of daily use.  i have worn many hiking boots in my life, but have never had this type of thing happen before.  The soles actually split laterally on the bottom right across the ball of foot area.  From reading some reviews here, i see here that it has happened to others who also got this pair of boots.  i love Vasque boots and have used many of them since the 70's.  I do hope Vasque has addressed this problem, but i would not buy these particular boots again at this point.  Had it not been for the split soles, surely i would have gotten another 2 or 3 years of use out of these puppies.