Epic Boot Battle: Danner vs. Merrell Hiking Boots!

In 1974, the Danner Mountain Light boot was deemed the best-value hiking boot in the country. This style of boot is so cleverly designed, which we’ll go over today, that it dominated the hiking industry for years. Even elephants were wearing Danner 6490s! Cool!

However, another boot beat the pants off of it—the Merrell Moab 3—and it’s not even close. Well, I guess it could be close. Now, Danner boots aren’t what they used to be at all. It used to be literally a tank, a real block of a boot. This doesn’t sit well with a lot of people when you consider this boot’s price tag. Danner is in a very weird spot—an uncomfortable, annoying, gross, yucky spot—but I do think they did something clever and something that they had to do.

Hey Everyone, Let’s Break This Down!

What’s up, everyone? It’s Michael! How are you doing? Today, we’re talking about the Danner Mountain Light, and we’re comparing it to the Merrell Moab 3s. We’re going to break it down into these three points:

Number one: the basic material overview and sizing information on these bad boys, which, by the way, I think are some of the prettiest-looking boots I’ve reviewed so far.

Number two is that there are some amazing design features in this boot, and then there are also some things that I don’t like at all. We’ll dive into that (hint, hint, hint!).

And finally, number three: this boot got very trendy and popular this year, and there are a lot of alternatives that I think are very worthy of mentioning, so we’ll mention them at the end with the roundup answer of also ‘are they worth it.’

The Legend of the 6490: A History Lesson

There’s something that the best Danner boots do that no other alternative boots really do. You could try to do it in them, but still. In order to really understand the incredibly weird boot that is the Danner Mountain Light, you have to understand its father—the 6490, the original lookalike version of this boot that was built dramatically differently.

It had incredibly thick leather insoles. It was fully leather lined, and it was essentially just big fat chunks of leather with a steel shank inside of it. It was just a beast of a boot, but for the time that it was made, it was not beastly. At the time, most boots were around 5 pounds; the 6490 was 4 pounds, which was “unbelievably light.”

When the 6490 came out in 1970, it was named by Backpacker magazine as the best value hiking boot in the US—in the country—because the 1970s were a time when people wanted value hiking boots because the outdoors was more popular than ever before.

There was a huge surge in both environmentalism and outdoor activities in general, and that really hit its point when the first Earth Day happened in 1970, I believe. The 6490 was released at the absolute perfect time, and so was Gortex—we’ll get to that later—not because it was the absolute best hiking boot, but because it was the best value hiking boot.

Mind-Blowing Features (Starting with that Tongue!)

But before we get into any of that, this boot does have some incredible features that I want to go over really bad, especially the tongue of this boot—that is the best thing about this entire boot. Seams, in general, are the weak point of any garment, shoe, bag, accessory, or anything you can imagine.

That is where you can pull things apart, that is where water comes through, where a whole mess of things can happen. So the Danner boys, and they did look at Italy and France, said, “Hey, what if we just uh, what if we just didn’t do seams? What if we put very few seams on this boot?” And everybody was like, “It’s a great idea! I can’t believe we didn’t think of that earlier!”

So these boots are one-piece construction—you cut out one piece of leather, fold it all up, sew it at certain points, and you don’t have a lot of seams.

One, they are inherently more water resistant than most other boots that have a lot of seams, and two—I actually learned this from a Rose Anvil video that you should check out—there are fewer pressure points or crease points because you’re not stacking leather on top of each other that bends and hits your feet.

The Gortex Game-Changer

The other massive technology that Danner integrated into their boots was Gortex. They were the first ever boot to use Gortex in the 1970s. So, fun fact: although Gortex doesn’t seem like it has its place in leather boots, which is, you know, the really negative thing I’ll talk about in a little bit, Danner did do it historically very soon into the life of the 6490, which I believe was already called the Mountain Light at this time.

And Gortex kind of changed the landscape because all of a sudden, the most popular hiking boot was now the first ever fully waterproof leather boot, so people were like, “Oh my God, can this get any better?”

Let’s Talk About That Sole Design

Before we get to my all-time favorite feature, and then we get to what everybody hates about these boots, we have to talk about the outsole, the midsole, and the sole area in general. The entire bottom part was one super dense, heavy chunk of rubber, which is great for durability as you’re walking around—it doesn’t wear down as easily.

But now you’ll see it’s three pieces: we have the incredibly dense heavy rubber at this bottom, then we have a huge chunk of foam in the midsole, and then we have another incredibly dense chunky piece of rubber.

These boots that are built specifically for hiking can now be dramatically lighter. Most of the weight in Danners is contained in the bottom outsole and midsole, so if that’s all foam—boom! The other thing it does is that it gives you a bit more cushion when you’re actually hiking and walking around because of that foam.

Everything that I didn’t mention except Gortex—’cause Gortex obviously is synthetic—in this boot is synthetic, which obviously the first thing that you probably think is that Danner is cheaping out. They’re not using the thick leather construction that they used to, and I can’t say that’s not why they’re doing it. I can’t say that’s not an added benefit to why they’re doing that, but although it’s not liked, it’s so obvious as to why they did it, and the payoff, I think, is massive.

That Wild One-Piece Tongue Design Though!

So really, yes, the boot for a boot this style does have a lot of synthetic materials inside of it, but we’ll get to why right after I talk about the tongue, ’cause I got to talk about the tongue. I got to French kiss you guys! You’ll probably look at these boots and think, “Huh, there’s only one side of the tongue!”

I know, it’s incredible! So, really, what Danner does is they have a little notch that they fold over the tongue, and this serves two purposes: one, it adds an extra layer of leather over the top of your foot to give it more protection if you kick a rock or a stick or whatever it may be, but two, it helps keep water out of the boot more effectively because only one side is open.

And then, when you open the boot up, it looks like this weird knife sheath thing that you could slide something into, but really it opens up to a regular tongue angled with this flap of the boot over it to protect you. That, my friends, is what we call the business! I believe this tongue design was invented by Paraboot’s sister company, Galibier, so not Danner-specific, but it’s still cool.

The Merrell Moab 3: The Plot Thickens

And then, of course, we have this boot, the Merrell Moab 3. This boot is 11 oz lighter than the Danners, it dries faster, it breathes better, it’s more cushioned, and it’s 300% cheaper than the Danners. So you would think, well, there’s no place for Danners anymore, but that, my friends, is what makes them so amazing!

Hey, weirdly, I only said one other time in this article that these are recraftable boots, which is obviously a huge deal. Once these boots get old, you can rebuild them and continue to use them, so it has a huge value add that Merrell and other boots like Salomons and Hokas don’t have.

It’s really impossible to notice how they truly are the best Danner boots if you don’t go and buy them from a physical store because, at that physical store, you have the incredibly modern super-cush bottom Hokas, then you have Salomons that look like they’re something out of the future, then you have a billion other boot brands using all the latest and greatest materials that are feather-light, super waterproof, and everything like that.

And among all of that modern technology, there sits Danner, a boot that was introduced in the 1970s and really hasn’t changed that much since, and it’s still there. There are no other boots from that era in that lineup—it’s just this one weird leather single-piece boot.

And if Danner hadn’t strategically changed things incrementally over the past 50 years, such as using synthetic materials on the inside of the boots so they dry faster if and when they get wet, they wouldn’t be there. But Danner is still used in the hiking community semi-regularly, which is wild!

Quick Comparison: Danner vs. Merrell

The Great Gortex Experiment

Now, I’m conflicted about this. I don’t know if I like it, I don’t know if I hate it. Sometimes I love it, other times I hate it, but the mix of Gortex and leather, to me, is like mixing peanut butter and butter together.

(Danner does make a Mountain Light without Gortex—I just didn’t notice that until after writing this, so it may sound like I’m saying I wish they did, but they do!)

The mix of leather and Gortex to me is essentially like if I said I had a bulletproof cookie, and you shot the cookie, and you found out the inside of the cookie was like 2-inch steel—the cookie is not bulletproof, but there is steel inside that technically makes it bulletproof.

And with Gortex, what you really have is a water-resistant, really nicely constructed boot with a waterproof sock liner on the inside. So water is not staying out of the boot—it is going into the boot, but the sock liner that is inside of the boot is blocking the water from touching your feet. And I don’t like getting leather this wet. I actually really hate it because it dries out the leather and things over time, so these two materials don’t really make sense for my specific use case. I understand it’s for a general hiker who would be very thankful if they were in super wet conditions.

Now, with that being said, the reason I’m okay with a waterproof membrane on the Merrells is that although we have these leather accents throughout that protect the general structure of the boot, this boot is mainly built off of a polyester mesh with cushion under it—all synthetic. So you can get these boots wet, it won’t affect the polyester, and they will dry incredibly fast, and that combination, to me, is what you should expect on a waterproof boot because it’s built for that.

The Big Question: Are These Worth Your Money?

Is the Danner Mountain Light worth it? The answer, of course, is yes and no.

So number one: obviously the biggest thing—these boots are made in America, but not just made in America, they are made in Portland, Oregon, by union labor.

For the employee rights and everything, this is really the highest that you could possibly get in the US. So, it’s not just US labor—the top-of-the-top paying employee treatment, everything labor.

Number two: obviously high leather grade, one-piece construction, all that’s very important.

But number three: Charles Danner, I believe, when selling this company, said, “I will only sell this company if you treat it as I treat it,” which is obviously it’s his namesake company, so he treated it incredibly well. Danner, the brand and the company that owns the brand has kept that promise forever because if you look at the recrafting time and how long it takes to fix the boots, it’s 3 weeks.

It is lightning fast! They are well-staffed, and they have great customer support. I DM’d them on Instagram, they responded immediately to me on the weekend. This is a company that cares about its products and cares about its customers because that is what you’re paying for, essentially.

But Wait, There Are Alternatives!

Now, to be honest, the argument for them not being worth it is a lot easier to make because Fracap has gorgeous hikers that are made the old way and are also cheaper, but they do feel like you’re walking on leather boards. Eddie Bauer has their K-6, which seems very close, but it’s Goodyear welted, and it’s three times less.

It’s not made in the USA, but still, it looks basically the same. G.H. Bass just released their 1876 collection, which looks absolutely insane. If you want to spend more, there’s obviously Paraboot—those I would say are more Alpine-based—and then you also have Diemme, which, to me, their boots look cooler. They’re not necessarily cheaper, but some are, and they have a rubber support higher up, so your feet will stay drier without the use of Gortex.

But even then, you really have to just figure out what you’re looking for because none of those things that I just mentioned have the same combination of materials that a Danner has.

So still, Danner may be the right choice for you, but even then, there is also the Merrell Moab 3s and Solomons and Hokas—there are so many other different boots that are better values for what you’re getting for your dollar that Danner is not the best value boot in the world anymore.

Watch This Review

Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

Are they worth it? For me, yeah. I think they’re cool. I’ll be happy with these for a very, very long time.

Alright, anyway, that is it for Danner vs Merrell hiking boots! Thank you so much for reading, really appreciate every time you click, and uh, I’ll see you very soon, okay? Goodbye!

This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.

The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.