Shoe review

Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 

 Very chuffed with my new shoes so I thought I’d pen a quick review. When I saw the Scarpa Golden Gate ATR shoes online at a very reasonable price, I thought, sod it let’s give em a go. I’ve got a few other models from Scarpa and we’ve been good friends on the trails ever since. 

Apparently, they’re a ‘door to trail shoe’ which means they are a good fit for multiple surfaces. From my recent experiences, they’re pretty well at home in the mountains too (the mountains of Salford are perfect). The sole is quite thick with not much drop and while running in them, they feel like HOKAS but with a more firm cushioning. I do like HOKAS, but they do feel spongy and for some strange reason, my knees just don’t like em, hence my punt at buying the Golden Gates. The grip on the Scarpas looks good, pretty deep lugs and works well on grass and mud, it’ll be interesting to see how they work on wet rock (won’t be long till it’s pissing down every week again).

The upper is made of material that drains water and lets air to your feet, you can see your hand inside the shoe, through the material (not that I’ll be wearing them on my hands but you take my point). 

There’s a sort of neoprene sock inside the shoe itself that wraps around your foot and helps to keep rocks and boulders out of the shoe and there’s plenty of room in the toe box, nowhere near as tight as La Sportiva Mutants for example. There’s also a loop on the heel of the shoe to assist putting them on. In my opinion, not really necessary, but you might see different.

There’s a standard lacing system and here’s where I’ve got a couple of gripes about the shoes design. Firstly, the laces are too long and there’s an annoying excess of lace even after double knotting them. As I’m running along, the laces hit the side of my legs and feet, I keep thinking that I’m kicking up bits and sticks etc, rather off putting. Secondly, there’s no little pocket thing at the top of the tongue so that the excess laces can be tucked away, like on the Scarpa Spin Ultra for example. 

All that said, these are minor gripes and the benefits outweigh the negatives. They’re a very comfy shoe with great cushioning, good grip, don’t feel clunky and heavy, so they’d probably be at home doing the local Parkrun too.

I’ll probably be taking these to the mountains of Switzerland in a few weeks time, let’s see how we get on together there…hopefully, they will help keep my trotters from going manky again! 

Forgive the picture of the sole of the shoe as this photo is of my current pair and we had just got back from a lovely day in the Lakes.

                                     #scarpa #scarpagoldengateatr #TrailRunning #mountainrunning