Salewa Mountain Trainer 2 Mid GTX | Tested and reviewed

When it comes to good footwear design, form should always follow function. What this means in practice is that you can usually tell a lot about a walking boot’s capabilities from its looks. In this case, the Salewa Mtn Trainer 2 Mid GTX’s full rubber rand and climbing shoe-style lacing are dead giveaways that this is intended as a more technical boot for mountain terrain.

This is a boot that is very proficient on rocky ground, whether you’re scrambling along ridgelines, crossing broken summit plateaus, traversing hillsides or negotiating scree slopes. Designed to offer stability, support and protection, it’s an excellent three-season boot for more demanding users. But in terms of secondary characteristics, such as walking comfort, overall weight, weatherproof performance, long-term durability and price, it also strikes a good balance, making it a very impressive package.

Design and features

The uppers of the Mtn Trainer 2 Mid Gore-Tex are predominantly made from 1.6mm thick suede leather, alongside stretch softshell fabric panels at the tongue, upper section of the heel and around the ankle cuff. The boot also has a protective full rubber rand, plus a solid heel cup that has an integrated metal cable known as Salewa’s 3F system, designed to help pull the heel in tight.

This cable connects the third highest lace eyelet with the instep and heel. It’s no gimmick, it really helps hold the heel in place within the boot, ensuring greater ankle support and side stability, and reducing the chance of heel slip (and therefore blisters).

The only possible drawback is that it adds a fair bit of external hardware to the boot design, as well as a potential failure point. You’d do well to snap the braided metal cable, but anecdotally I have heard of it happening in one instance.

Internally you get a Gore-Tex Performance Comfort liner for waterproofing. The tongue is gusseted up to the first lace hook, giving a good flood height. The tongue and ankle cuff have ample padding with good structure, but the contoured cuff and rear Achilles cutaway still provide good flexibility.

This is certainly not one of those flimsy, ultralight hiking boots – but it’s still supple and soft where it is needed, and the boot has quite a lot of toe flex. There’s just enough rigidity and firmness for technical ground, but good comfort levels too for all-day use.

The laces extend almost all the way to the toe, enabling a tight, fine-tuned fit for enhanced precision when required, despite the lack of locking lace hooks.

The midsole is made from firmer dual density expanded PU rather than the softer EVA foam rubber you tend to find in cheaper boots. This provides moderate levels of cushioning, ensuring our feet were well protected from lumpy-bumpy mountain terrain.

It’s also more resistant to long-term compression than EVA, which collapses over time, so although it might not feel as plush initially, you should get a boot with superior long-term durability.

Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t a springy trainer-hiker for bouncing along the trail. That’s not what Salewa are known for, nor what this boot is intended for, so if that’s what you’re after, try Inov-8, Hoka or other brands with maximalist midsole designs.

Instead, the Mtn Trainer delivers a stable platform in conjunction with a Vibram WTC2 outsole. It’s a classic alpine trekking pattern with dedicated climbing, traction and braking zones, deep and widely spaced lugs, and a sharply undercut heel brake for downhill grip.

It manages to provide both feel and precision on rocky scrambling terrain, yet excellent grip in wet and muddy conditions too. The toe ‘climbing zone’ is great for edging and precision footwork on easier scrambles, though there’s a little too much flex for full-on steep ground use.

Overall weight is middling, at 600g per boot in a men’s UK 9. That puts the Mtn Trainer 2 Mid GTX in the same weight bracket as other hillwalking favourites like the Salomon Quest 4 GTX. It’s not overly heavy for a solid and capable three-season boot such as this and still represents a significant weight saving compared to traditional full-grain leather hiking boots like the Altberg Nordkapp or the Meindl Bhutan, for example.

On the other hand, it’s considerably heftier than ultralight trainer-hikers, the lightest of which tip the scales at under 400g per boot. How much of a factor this will be depends on your personal preferences and the types of mountain adventures you tackle.

This boot is better suited to keen summit-baggers taking on more challenging terrain and occasionally straying off-piste rather than those who like to get up and down as quickly as possible, sticking to mainly well-trodden paths.

Performance and comfort

In terms of overall fit, this boot has a slim heel with a narrow midfoot and a broader forefoot. The toebox is also quite asymmetric, which means there is lots of space for the big toe but not so much room for other toes to splay. This keeps the front of the boot neat and precise, which is ideal for careful foot placement on more demanding terrain, but less good for big miles and easier walking on flat or undulating ground.

When it comes to internal volume, we’d describe this boot as medium – it’s neither noticeably roomy nor too close-fitting. But if you do find you have a bit too much dead space inside, Salewa supplies the boot with a secondary insole system that it calls the Multi Fit Footbed Plus (MFF+) system. The main insole is a simple and somewhat flimsy affair, though it does have rear wings around the heel and midfoot to reduce hotspots.

For most foot shapes and sizes (or if you like to wear full-cushion socks), this will probably work fine. However, you can add an extra insole layer, included with each pair at no extra cost, for a closer fit. All of which means the boots should fit a wider variety of foot types.

We were expecting this boot to feel like a traditional mountain boot, i.e. quite firm underfoot, but it proved more comfortable than anticipated. It’s still pretty solid, but even after a long hill day we didn’t feel footsore. Admittedly, a little bedding-in time is required, but within 15-20 miles of use, they were fine.

All-round performance was faultless. We tested these boots through November, December and January, which is really pushing it for a three-season boot, but even with some snow on the ground, with slippery conditions underfoot, they were excellent.

In use, the boot felt precise, supportive and wrapped the foot nicely. The waterproofing did its job, the toe bumper protected my feet well on scree and rocky ground, and the heel remained secure, with no rubbing or slippage. Grip was also reliable across a range of different ground conditions, and the sharply undercut heel brake provide particularly effective downhill.

Sustainability

Unlike the Salewa Ortles Light Powertex Mid boot that we reviewed in our scrambling category a few months back, the Mtn Trainer 2 Mid GTX is not one of the brand’s products that bears the Salewa Committed icon – the brand’s tag for products that are manufactured according to a strict set of socially and environmentally responsible criteria.

That’s because the boot contains an ePTFE-based Gore-Tex membrane that contains PFCs. The suede leather uppers are obviously not vegan-friendly, and other materials contain no recycled content either. It would be good to see Salewa expanding the ‘Committed’ approach to their entire footwear category rather than just a handful of products.

However, the boot itself is made in Europe (Romania), which presumably lowers the product’s overall carbon footprint in terms of transportation costs for raw and finished materials, at least for UK/European markets.

As a brand, Salewa is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation and has been since 2013. It’s currently classed as ‘good’ by that organisation, under the criteria of their annual Brand Performance Check, scoring 66/100 overall.

Price and competition

With an RRP of £245, this is at the upper end of the market for a three-season boot. But it’s well-made from durable materials, with features that should ensure good lifetime durability. So, in that regard, we’d still say it offers decent value. The main difficulty might be finding a retailer.

Salewa products aren’t the easiest to get hold of currently, at least in the UK. That’s because, post-Brexit, the brand has halted shipping to the UK. Still, a simple Google search revealed that you can buy these boots from various UK online outdoor retailers for £145-200 (admittedly, in limited sizes and colourways).

This was also the most technically capable boot we tested in our 2025 three-season boots group test. It’s even more competent than last year’s overall winner, the Salewa Alp Trainer 2 Mid GTX (though that model is cheaper, at £200). Other similar alternatives to consider include the Salomon Quest 4 GTX and La Sportiva TX5 GTX (both £200), the Scarpa Mescalito Trk GTX (£265) and the Hanwag Makra Trek GTX (also £265).

If you’re prepared to sacrifice some of that precise feel and technical capability for improved walking comfort and more cushioning, then a whole host of potential options open up – everything from super-plush fabric trainer hikers like the Hoka Kaha or Inov8 Roclite Mid to lightweight leather boots like the heritage-styled AKU Slope Original, the very comfortable Merrell Moab Speed 2 Mid Leather WP or even the great value KEEN Pyrenees. Really, the choices are endless – but the single most important factor is fit. Our advice? Visit a good outdoor shop and get proper fitting advice, then trying as many different pairs as they recommend.

Verdict

A capable three-season boot that is particularly well suited to tackling classic UK mountain routes. For long yomps or backpacking trips you might want something softer underfoot.

About the author

Matt Jones is a freelance journalist based in the heart of Snowdonia National Park, he’s a vastly experienced gear tester and self-confessed outdoor kit geek. Matt’s been one of our main gear testers for the last couple of years and is the first person we call with any complicated kit queries that need in-depth and forensic analysis.