Mission LT (technical)

The Mission LT is designed for speed on long mountainous approaches. It has Blacklabel Mountain rubber with a more aggressive tread pattern for more grip. This shoe has a rockered bottom that helps to protect your feet from stones and bruising. For fit it has a webbing reinforced system that is supposed to give a sock-like bootie fit – but that alone does not hold it on your foot. I tested this shoe on countless approaches in the High Sierra, Yosemite, Sawtooth Wilderness, and Red Rocks. With all the miles I put on these I would say for the most part they deliver on what Black Diamond was trying to achieve, but still falls short of their obvious competitor, the La Sportiva TX4.

They are very light at 11oz and are also extremely stiff (more than the TX4). As far as the fit goes for hiking (I chose street shoe size), I think it is on point, but for technical scrambling or climbing I had a hard time cinching the laces down tight enough. As the approaches went on, I would continuously have to stop and retie the laces – one one 7 mile hike I had to stop twice to re-tighten.

I even wore these on a big wall in Yosemite to see how they would fare, and I had to continuously stop and retighten them for fear my foot would pop out. Let me just say, it was frightening to feel like you were about to loose your shoe on a big wall, and I basically stopped wearing these shoes afterwards because of that experience.

The other stand-out issue was the fabric on the upper portion of the shoe was not as durable as I expected. Within 3 strenuous approaches, each shoe developed a hole in the knit material where it met the rand on the toe. One hole from a bouldery approach and the other hole from a class 3 chimney. In the end, between the lack of durability on the mesh and the loose lace issue, I can’t recommend this shoe – especially when compared to the La Sportiva TX4.