I wear a size 8 in almost ALL footwear...tennis shoes, sandals, dress shoes, casuals, Redwing and Wolverine steel toes, etc.  However... hikers have often been a fit nightmare.  I believe this is often due to European manufacturers using their typical sizing standards in the US market. Asolos 530-535s in size 8 had been my go-to hiker for almost 2 decades (3-4 pairs). I've worn them down into the Grand Canyon, on many trips from lowland forests to slopes of the Andes, the eastern Himalayas and Borneo.  They fit my 8D feet perfectly, could wear them straight out of the box, have never had a hot spot or blister. However their traction on slick and wet surfaces was awful (think hog on ice), and my last pair didn't last very long before delaminating on a trip in Colombia.  Given the above and seeing that the 535 soles hadn't changed in several years I went on a quest for a new model.

Unfortunately the selection of non-Goretex boots gets smaller every day.  Goretex is an awful awful product and words alone cannot express the fear and loathing I have of it.  Did you know that the word Goretex is middle earth Elven for "blanket of Sauron"?  It's true, you can look it up.

Anyhow I came upon  these 308s.  They had a lot of positive reviews including some from former Asolo 535 users.  Well...as you can tell from the title of this post, things didn't work out.  As many have stated, there's plenty of room for toes, but no matter how I tied them up I could never get my heels locked in well.  (Using my normal green Superfeet and expedition wt merino socks.)  Reverting back to the Zamberlan footbed helped a little, but not enough.  At first I thought it was the low height of the backstrap(?) but eventually came to the conclusion that the boots are a big size 8.  I noticed that they are a European 42.  Usually US 8 equals a Euro 41.  Unfortunately 8s are the smallest available size in the US.  So no 308 trekkers for me.

On the upside they look better than the marketing pics.