My Favorite Snow Boots Are Actually Our Budget-Pick Hiking Boots

I am not an avid hiker, but I like to pretend that one day I will be. And that’s why, during a bout of post-holiday malaise last year, I snatched up a pair of deeply discounted Merrell Moab 3 Mid Waterproof Hiking Boots. (They have been Wirecutter’s budget-pick hiking boots for eight years and counting.)

Since then, I can count on one mitten the number of times I’ve actually donned my Merrell Moab 3s for a full-fledged walk in the woods. But fortunately for me and my achy, always-cold, support-craving feet, I’ve happily discovered that these boots are fantastic at traversing all kinds of terrain in all kinds of weather, while also keeping my tootsies comfy, toasty, and dry. They’ve become my go-to footwear whether I’m shoveling snow, taking my dog out in a downpour, tending to my yard, or forcing myself to go on an actual hike.

They’re kind of a Swiss Army–knife shoe for me — a snow-boot/rain-boot/gardening-clog hybrid. And they do the work of several more-specialized pairs while saving plenty of space in my closet and leaving a little wiggle room in my bank account.

To borrow (and butcher) a rather well-known creed: Neither snow nor rain nor any other kind of muckety-muck on the ground stays these dependable boots from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Budget pick

These lower-priced boots are a reliable choice for people who plan to hike short distances and for those with wider feet.

We praise the Merrell Moab 3s (which also come in men’s sizes) in our hiking-boots guide: They’re “extremely comfortable,” “fairly breathable,” and “easy to lace,” while offering “decent ankle support” and “preventing sore feet.”

I agree. In my experience, these boots check all of the boxes, no matter how you use them. Let’s start with how easy they are to put on and take off.

Years ago, before I worked at Wirecutter, I owned a pair of winter boots that I’d thoroughly researched online before buying — only to realize that their footbeds offered no give, and the uppers felt incredibly stiff. These boots were so maddeningly frustrating to wriggle my feet into that I once flung them across the room like a toddler as I yelled, at nobody in particular, “I don’t like these!”

The Moabs, by contrast, slip on and off like a dream. I can even quickly step into them hands-free if I need to. “I never have to re-lace them,” my colleague Maki Yazawa (who’s owned the same pair of Moabs since 2016) told me. “I just slip them back on.”

That’s not surprising considering that, as we note in our hiking-boots guide, they “offer the most flexible fit we found.”

While Merrell boots are available with built-in cold-weather insulation (look for ones with “Thermo” in the name), mine are technically uninsulated. However, with help from a pair of thick socks, these boots easily keep my feet warm during New Jersey winters — without turning them into sweaty slabs of meat come spring. That’s largely due to the shoes’ well-chosen materials. The suede-and-mesh exterior, a Gore-Tex membrane, and a fleece-like lining work in tandem to provide warmth along with protection from wind and moisture.

None of those features would matter to me, though, if the boots didn’t keep me safe from slips and falls. Merrell touts that its outsoles are made from a trademarked rubber compound called Vibram TC5. In our testing, we’ve found that Vibram delivers grippy traction in all kinds of conditions. “I call them my parkour shoes,” Maki told me. “I feel like I’m more grounded and nimble in them.”

Their stability has actually proved most crucial to me when I’m gardening. My backyard is sloped, and it has fairly poor-quality soil, full of rocks and pebbles, acorns, black walnuts, and other undesirable bits that can roll around underfoot. I basically do my planting and weeding on a slippery incline. And no sneakers have ever kept me as stable in that environment as my Merrell boots have.

Maki and I also both reach for our Merrells in rain and snow. In fact, we’ve both tried rain boots from other respected brands (Hunter for Maki, L.L.Bean for me), and we’ve found that we vastly prefer our Merrell hiking boots because of their superior traction.

In addition to all of that, the Merrells have cushioned, pliant footbeds, and they’re relatively lightweight (for a pair of boots), so they are comfy and painless to wear, even for long stretches. As Maki put it, “They’re not a clunky hiking boot. They’re more flexible and super comfortable.”

Let me give you just one recent example of how helpful these boots have been in my daily life.

One frigid, damp, gray day, my husband and I attended our daughter’s daylong soccer tournament. I wore my Merrells, while my husband wore a regular pair of sneakers. I asked him why he didn’t wear boots, considering how wet and cold it was out. He said his winter boots hurt his feet after a while because they were too heavy. He was more willing to deal with soggy feet than with pained feet, since at least with the former, he could put on fresh socks to help mitigate his discomfort.

With my Merrell Moabs, I haven’t had to settle for the less-unpleasant option. This pair is my “all of the above” choice, no matter what’s on the ground below.

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Catherine Kast.