Merrell Red Desert
By Steve Mann

The Merrell Red Desert lies somewhere between a hiking shoe and a running shoe. Merrell states that the Red Desert offers "exceptional stability and ankle control for off-road running." True, the shoe's stability and ankle support are excellent, but I found the Red Desert lacking, or more accurately overabundant in weight for a trail running shoe. Not that the Red Desert isn't a good shoe, but compared head-to-head with the new breed of trail runners, such as The North Face's (TNF) Sawtooth Ridge or Adidas Incision, the Red Desert wouldn't be my first choice for a 100% trail running shoe. (The TNF and Adidas shoes will be the subjects of an upcoming comparative review by Rhett Olson.)

Having said that, there are situations where I would pick the Red Desert over a lighter-weight, trail-running-specific shoe. Merrell has made a great lightweight general-purpose shoe. The Red Desert makes a great approach shoe, i.e. a shoe that performs equally well whether day hiking, scrambling, light climbing, occasional off-road running, or carrying a light pack.

To reach this conclusion, I took the Red Desert to one of its namesake destinations, the red deserts of Utah. I wore the Red Desert in Canyonlands National Park. During my three days in the park, the Red Desert served as my camp shoe, hiker, and on one pitifully wet day in the desert, I wore my Red Desert's with a full pack. After a full 16-mile day with a 40-pound pack my ankles were tired--I wouldn't recommend the Red Desert for backpacking, even though I'd wear the shoe again in the same set of circumstances, rather than the soaking wet hiking boots I had with me. (But that's another story. . . )

I found the tread pattern to give good traction, not so much as to stick when running, but enough to reduce slipping in the mud. The shoes breathe well, but do not dry quickly, another con if you consider the Red Desert as a running-specific shoe. Rhett suggested that he would like the shoe to have a more padded and larger tongue for running. For a general-purpose shoe I found the tongue very comfortable, but for more frequent running Rhett's suggestion would be an improvement.

One feature none of the testers liked was the awkward lacing system. Rather than eyelets, the Red Desert has webbing/fabric loops that the laces pass through. Because these are not rounded on the edges, it is very difficult to pull on the laces to tighten them. Instead, you have to tighten the laces between each pair of loops. We postulated that perhaps the idea was to reduce the loosening of the laces, i.e. if they don't pull well to tighten, they probably wouldn't pull through to loosen. However, we found the Red Desert's laces were no less likely to loosen than those of other shoes we've tested, but much more inconvenient to tighten. Although you replace the laces infrequently, the loops also made this an unpleasant task.

Fit and comfort were strong points of the Red Desert. Most of our testers have wide feet (D-width), and the Merrell shines at fitting our feet. The toe box in particular seems well-suited to our crews' paddle-feet.

Summary: If you're looking for strictly a trail running shoe, then the Merrell Red Desert comes up a little short, or more specifically a little heavy. As an approach shoe, or as a general purpose hiking, packing, scrambling shoe, the Red Desert is an excellent choice. Its strong points are stability, ankle and arch support, and comfort. Its weak points are weight, the lacing system, and arguably a less-padded tongue. Overall, the Red Desert merits consideration for those looking for a single shoe to meet the needs of a variety of outdoor activities.

Price: $100.00

Steve Mann is a contributing editor for GearReview.com.

For more information, contact:
Merrell
9341 Courtland Dr. NE
Rockford, MI 49351
(888)637-7001