I love my Meindl boots and would highly recommend. Never tried Crispi or any of the other brands mentioned in this thread.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'll have to try to find some new brands. Usually I buy most my clothes from the local farm store, the hiking boots included.

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I've been thinking more about the fact that the hiking boots are not much more than a heavy duty walking shoe. The soles have mostly given out in the same spot, and it's one of the areas that's more like a shoe than a boot. I have had cowboy boots that have lasted years, but they were simple leather soles and stitching, ot rubber coating.

I work at a camp year round. When summer staff arrive, they like to keep track of how many steps they take with a fit-bit. For some of them it's the most exercise they have ever had. I run circles around them and can be on my feet, constantly moving for 15 hours. I'd guess that I log 12k to 15k steps a day during the summer. So yeah, I pretty hard on boots.

Thanks again everyone for the suggestions.

they talk about replacing running shoes every 300-500 miles

my aunt and uncle were into ultra marathons , they went through shoes like mad

if you are walking 7.5 miles a day average in the summer 60 days would be about average life for a pair if you get 120 days your probably really wearing them out

more employers should offer clothing stipend for boots , the employee can order from a catalog or get reimbursed for things like boots and it can be counted as a business expense so that neither the business nor employee pay taxes on that.

when my wife worked at the co-op she got an amount of clothing she could order from the catalog it all had the co-op logo on it. as well as safety toe boots each year

it's a nice way to keep employees in good gear good gear leads to fewer work place injuries

Thanks for everyone's input, I've been looking into boots, this has been very helpful.