Scarpa Zodiac Plus GTX Review

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Update - 12-17-2017 = downgraded from 5 to 2 stars

The boots have already started to fail. I went for a 6 mile hike with a small section of scrambling in the rain and when I got home, I noticed the sole of the boots have chunks of the rubber missing. It is also starting to crack in various locations and the toes are already several millimeters shaved down and starting to foam up.

I am also a little annoyed that OGL didn't mention that their own boots in the review are missing small chunks of rubber and have cracks forming in the tread. If you zoom in on the picture of the sole of the used pair of boots, it can be seen. The climbing zone on the front is missing chunks as well as other lugs. While not as bad as what I have experienced, it seems like a gross oversight to not mention this. I purchased these boots based heavily on their positive review.

I did some researching and found that others have had the same issue. It could be just a bad batch of Vibram, but I can't verify if this is just the way the boots are or if it is a defect. At the rate they are falling apart in the rubber, I would be lucky to get 100 miles before needing a resole. This may also explain why they are going on sale right now for as low as $170.00.



Original Review Below.


The Zodiac Plus has some features that are only found in boots weighing much more. The soles are very stiff and resist flexing in every direction, even out to the toes. The waterproofing is superb and goes very high up to nearly the top of the ankle. The fit is better for people with wide feet than many other Scarpa shoes and boots. The tread design underneath is excellent for mud and kick-stepping up steep and loose hillsides. Wet traction can be excellent on rocks with rough surfaces, but will slide easily on smooth wet slabs. The leather is rubber coated on the inside and can take some time to break in and reshape.


Comfort

For a boot that doesn't have thick padding, it sure is remarkably comfortable along the whole upper part of the foot. As long as your foot shape isn't too far off from the last (foot mold) they use, it's going to fit great after a couple of miles of breaking them in. Mine came in the mail and were a little cold from sitting outside. When I initially put them on, they felt very tight around the ball of my foot. But once the warmed up and I walked around my house for a few minutes, they formed into a snug fit. Not too loose and not too tight. Perfecto.

Compared to the Scarpa shoes I have tried before, the Zodiac has a narrower heel and wider forefoot. I have slightly narrow heels and slightly wider at the ball, so their shoes were always torture on the front half of my feet, while my heels swam around like fish in a large bowl. I find that the Zodiac fits more like a Salewa boot than any other Scarpa I have used.

For people who don't have strong feet with good padding underfoot, the Zodiac might seem a little on the hard side in terms of cushioning. For those of us who have strong foot pads, the Zodiac's sole stiffness is plenty fine. And when hauling along over jagged rocks, the stiffness provides a near perfect barrier to feeling like your feet are being speared on sharp points. This is crucial for going fast through rough gullies and talus.

The lacing system also does a great job of distributing the pressure when they are tied down for technical footwork. It take s a bit of practice, but once you figure it out the lacing can be pulled really tight all the way down to the toes. I also like to pull the ankle locking eyelet tight on all of my boots and find the Zodiac doesn't give me the feeling of my foot being in a poor set of snowboard boots and tight bindings like other boots out there.

I also find that the Zodiac has a nicer toe box than even the Quest 4D, which is often praised for good toe room. It's just wide enough, as has plenty of vertical space to not crush the tops of the toes.


Stability

Once again, if you have strong feet and ankles, then the Zodiac is plenty stable on flatter trails. It has just enough lateral control over the boot for the ankles to be steady when traversing a hillside, but at the same time they don't limit the range of motion as much as the Quest 4D. There is still enough ankle freedom to get your body into some technical scrambling positions.

The Quest 4D has more stability on smooth and flat ground, especially for those with weak or injured ankles. But much of that stability is lost when they get into uneven terrain and when traversing hillsides. If you only go hiking a limited number of times a year and don't work your feet and ankles on a weekly basis, then it would be smarter to go with something with plenty of ankle stiffness, which the Quest has in spades. On the other hand, boots like the Quest will keep your ankles from ever getting stronger by working them harder. I could feel my ankles lose a bit of strength just from several months of wearing the Quest boots for my weight training. If you really want to hike more often and get your ankles into great strength, then I feel the Zodiac would be a great choice. Just make sure to start with short hikes and work your way up to more miles when gaining ankle and foot strength. Rolling an ankle and injuring it can be a huge detriment to a workout regimen.

As far as the midsole is concerned, the Zodiac has vastly superior stability and resistance to twisting and bending. Considering how light the boots are, this is a remarkable achievement by the Scarpa designers. For standing on small footholds, the Zodiac is a total champ.


Traction

One of the main benefits of the tread design is how well the stiff lugs dig into steep and loose surfaces. They also shed out mud better than probably any boot I have used before. Overall, they are very consistent over most types of surfaces and terrain, especially in dry weather. The only hiccup is their poor performance on wet, smooth rocks and slabs. The harder rubber and lack of surface area makes them slip easily. It's manageable, but takes extra care to not eat it hard. Keep this in mind if doing a long traverse like those found in the Olympic Mountains where damp rock may be encountered any time of year. Compared to the gold-standard of performance on wet slimy rock slabs held by the Five Ten Impact High boots,the Zodiac scores a "D" at best. I've used Five Ten shoes and boots with S1 rubber for over ten years and the Impact model allows one to stroll up slick slabs like wearing suction cups underfoot. They even put the Camp Four boots/shoes to shame in this regard. If OGL had tested the Zodiac Plus in my area during non-dry weather, there's no chance the boots would have scored more than a 7 for traction.


Weight

While there are lighter boots out there, there literally isn't anything that comes close to the Zodiac in terms of burliness to weight ratio. My Salewa MS Firetail EVO mid boots are a bit lighter, but they don't have anywhere close to the structure of the Zodiacs. In order to get into a boot that matches the Zodiac, you'll have to go up a half pound or more in weight to achieve it.

The thing I love to do with these boots is increase my pace over boulders and tricky terrain. The reduced weight really allows my tall, skinny legs to move my feet around quick enough to allow the fast precision necessary for delicate footwork. My Salewa boots have the same advantage, but they also do not have the underfoot protection of the Zodiacs, which let me really hammer my feet into anything no matter how pointy.


Water Resistance

I was a little worried when I first ordered the Zodiacs. It did not appear that the gore-tex lining covered the tongue of the boot. The color of the fabric changes from the sides of the boot to the top, which threw me off because most boots use the light gray lining where the gore-tex is placed. The Zodiacs have a black lining under the tongue, but upon closer inspection, there is indeed gore-tex lined under the tongue.

Even after some use, the initial DWR coating on the boots is very effective in shedding off water, so that the gore-tex doen't have to act like a first line of defense like it does in most other boots.

Now, the most impressive part of the waterproofing, is the fact that the flood height goes very far up the tongue and isn't cut low like other boots. I can dunk them pretty deep and not worry about water coming in, even though the water is still not close to the top of the ankles. The only downside to this is that the instep of the boot is much tighter than the Quest 4D. So if you have a massive instep, getting in and out of the Zodiac might be a chore compared to other brands and models.


Durability

These sure are pretty boots, but they don't stay pretty for long. The uppers scuff up rather easily when scrambling or bushwhacking. I will have to put a couple hundred miles on them before I feel confident giving any feedback to their durability overall. One thing is for absolute certain though, the lower lace eyelets are vastly superior to those found on the Quest 4D boots. The Zodiac has holes directly in the leather where as the Quest has plastic eyelets that are riveted on. In my general experience, the direct holes in the leather are vastly superior against breaking loose and ruining a good pair of boots.


Lacing System

I'm not quite sure why OGL rates the lacing system of the Quest 4D better than the Zodiac. I think both work equally well. The locking ankle hook works just as well on both, in my experience. The Zodiac is designed to work with thinner laces, while the Quest uses thicker laces. Both are about equal in ease of use, with maybe a slight edge to the Zodiac for making it easier to get the first lace hooks set in. The laces on my size 11 Zodiacs are also much longer than the ones that came with my size 10.5 Quests. This allows for more lacing options for those who know how to use lacing trickery to get the fit exactly how they wish. The Quest boots didn't have much extra lace to work with, let alone double tie the knots. I find both systems need a double knot to keep from coming loose when hammering through steep terrain. The only thing I can think of is maybe my copy of the Zodiac boots are a later batch than the ones tested by OGL, and maybe Scarpa modified them a little in a subsequent batch? Who knows.


Notable Features

There are several things unique about these boots that might be of interest. First of all, the backside of the leather is coated in a durable rubberized layer. It's most obvious under the laces where the leather overlaps with the tongue. Upon closer inspection and a little prying, it appears this rubberized layer may extend all the way down to the base of the boot. This could also explain why the leather seems a bit more stiff and why OGL found it hard to pull the boots tight for people with skinny feet. The boot really wants to hold its structure without folding and floppy around. For anyone who is having trouble with the fit of the boots, it may take a good number of miles before the upper change their form permanently. On the other hand, this rubberized layer may add a bit to their water resistance. I noticed OGL alluded to the leather soaking up water and letting it get to the gore-tex, but I am not so sure that is an accurate assumption. If anything, the wet leather may act as a cold-sink and cause excess moisture to condense on the inside from sweating. It will be interesting to see how this affects the boots next summer in higher temps as well.

Another neat piece of the design is how the gore-tex layer appears to wrap around the whole bottom of the boot under the footbed. Most boots I have owned have a sort of stiff felt below the foot, but no gore-tex until towards the edges of the footbed where it then goes into the uppers. The Zodiac boots have a full wrap around the entire foot. As the boots wear down and get older, this will hopefully reduce the chance of any water seeping in from the bottom when they have been exposed to water for a long duration.


Break-in Period

One thing that I am finding is that these boots are very elastic in the leather areas. This may also be in part due to the rubber layer laminated onto the back of the leather. When they are cold and new, they do not flex much at all, but once they warm up a little they loosen up and feel like they a re breaking in without any miles on them at all. Mine usually loosen up to where they need to be by less than half of a mile or a mile at most. When they are left over night, they seem to shrink back to their factory form after each day of use. This seems to happen less and less as they get up to around 30 miles of use or so. It may also depend on how much they need to conform to your feet.


Value

Yes, they are expensive. But on the other hand, they are also made in Italy by some people who clearly have a passion of making the best boots they can possibly make. Other brands made in China just never have such an attention to detail and precise fitment. Every cut of fabric and stitch is perfect down to the millimeter. Even compared to other Italian boot brands like Zamberlan, I think Scarpa does a much better job of making every boot as perfect as possible. I had a few pairs of Zamberlain boots that had very high quality parts, but the just weren't put together with much precision.

Compared to the Quest 4D, I think the Scarpa is a much better value even at $250 full retail. I get the impression that Salomon uses a different business model where they are a bit more lax on their quality control and push that burden onto the consumer. They charge more than a boot made in China should cost, but they may have also factored that into the price of the boot and figured a certain percentage of defective copies will be sent back for warranty replacement. Salomon can then afford to send you a voucher for a new pair of boots and still be making money in the long run. While this might work for some people, it better for others to have the peace of mind knowing that Scarpa weeds out the bad boots before they even hit shelves. A warranty doesn't help much when you are 30 miles from the car and your boot fails.

With all that said though, the Quest 4D boots are a great value when purchased on sale at $150 USD, just not quite as much at $230 USD.


The Competition

I also have experience with the La Sportiva Trango Trk, Salomon Ultra Mid II, and the Adidas Terrex Scope High. All of which are featured here on OGL.

The Trango is probably the closest competitor like-for-like to the Zodiac. It's lightweight and has a very grippy outsole that does great in technical terrain. On the downside, it is less durable, not as waterproof, and much much tighter around the front of the foot.

The Terrex isn't in the same category, but it does overlap a little. It's much skinnier than the Zodiac in both the fit and the outsole tread. It works better for more serious scrambling and even rock climbing over the Zodiac, but fails to deliver any sort of hiking comfort or traction in anything other than solid rock. In fact, it's technically more of a high-top approach shoe than it is a hiking boot. I would personally have this model in the approach shoe review section instead of the hiking boot section.

The Ultra II isn't even in the same realm in any area other than being lightweight. It's downright dangerous on any sort of rock scrambling, especially if wet out. It doesn't even do as good of a job hiking long distances with a pack, mostly due to the lack for underfoot protection from sharp rocks. As a day hiker on smooth trails, it's lighter and more cushy than the Zodiac and really shines for those with sensitive feet.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this product to a friend.