Salomon Review: Is It a Good Brand? A UK Hiker's Verdict

Salomon is one of the names you see most often on the feet of people who actually cover the miles, and "is Salomon a good brand?" is one of the most common questions I get asked about footwear. This is the straight answer, written by someone who hikes in two pairs of Salomons every week rather than someone reading off a spec sheet.

I walk the Jurassic Coast, the Purbeck Hills and the Brecon Beacons, and Salomon has ended up covering two ends of my footwear range: a fast dry-weather shoe and a wet-weather winter boot. That real ownership sits behind the verdict below, alongside the brand facts, the signature technology and the one fit issue that decides whether Salomon is right for you.

The verdict up front

Yes, Salomon is a good brand. For hiking and trail-running footwear specifically, it is one of the best in the world, and it earns that reputation on grip, fit precision and durability rather than on marketing.

There is one caveat that matters more than any other, and it is the reason a minority of buyers end up disappointed: Salomon runs narrow. The brand builds its shoes to hold the foot down firmly, which is superb if you have a slim to medium foot and wrong if you have a broad or high-volume one. Get the fit right and Salomon is hard to beat. Get it wrong and no amount of grip or waterproofing rescues a shoe that pinches.

So the honest summary is this. Salomon makes premium footwear that performs at the top of its category, backed by proper in-house technology (Contagrip grip, the Quicklace system, the 3D Advanced Chassis) and decades of Alpine heritage. Buy it for the fit and the grip, check your width before you commit, and it will not let you down.

Salomon at a glance

Founded

1947

Headquarters

Annecy, French Alps, France

Owned by

Amer Sports

Made in

France, Vietnam and China

Known for

Trail-running and hiking footwear, ski bindings and gear

Price tier

Premium (roughly £110 to £210 for hiking footwear)

Signature tech

Contagrip, Quicklace, SensiFit, 3D Advanced Chassis, GORE-TEX

History and heritage

Salomon was founded in 1947 in Annecy, in the heart of the French Alps, and it started life a long way from trail shoes. François Salomon set up a small metalworking workshop making ski edges, helped by his wife and his son Georges. The mountains were the business from day one, which is a large part of why the brand still feels credible on rough ground today.

The company built its early reputation in skiing. It automated the production of steel ski edges in the 1950s, reinvented ski bindings, and by 1972 was the world's leading maker of ski bindings. Ski boots and skis followed through the 1970s and 1980s. That is the DNA: precision mechanical engineering for people moving fast over mountains in bad weather.

Salomon moved into hiking footwear in 1992, and the trail-running and hiking side of the business is now what most UK walkers know it for. The engineering mindset carried straight across. The obsession with locking the foot down, the in-house grip compounds, the moulded chassis under the midsole, all of it reads like a ski-binding company that decided to build shoes. The Annecy design centre still houses the design, marketing and sales teams for the brand's running, skiing and outdoor lines.

Ownership has changed hands over the years. Salomon was bought by Adidas in 1997, and in 2005 Adidas sold it on. It now sits within Amer Sports, the group that also owns names like Arc'teryx and Atomic. Head office remains in Annecy, where it has always been.

What Salomon does best

Strip away the brand story and Salomon's footwear rests on a small set of technologies that turn up again and again across the range. These are the things that actually justify the price.

Contagrip. This is Salomon's own outsole rubber, and it is the single biggest reason the brand grips so well. On the wet chalk, slick limestone and greasy rock that define British walking, Contagrip holds where a lot of cheaper rubber slides. Salomon tunes it by model: the aggressive deep-lug Mud Contagrip on the Speedcross 6 for soft ground, and the more moderate All-Terrain Contagrip on the XA Pro 3D for mixed trail. It sits alongside Vibram as one of the two benchmark compounds for wet-rock grip.

Quicklace. Salomon's one-pull lacing system is on the Speedcross and the XA Pro, and it is one of those small features you appreciate every single time you put the shoes on. Pull the single cord to tighten the whole shoe evenly, clip the slider, tuck the excess into the tongue pocket, done. No laces coming undone mid-walk, nothing to snag on brush. The one trade-off is less fine control than traditional laces if you like to tension different parts of the foot separately.

SensiFit and the 3D Advanced Chassis. SensiFit is the construction that wraps the upper around the foot for that secure, cradled Salomon hold. The 3D Advanced Chassis is the clever one: a moulded frame between the midsole and the outsole that controls how the shoe twists, so your foot tracks straight and stable over rough and cambered ground instead of rolling. It is the reason the XA Pro feels so planted on uneven terrain, and it is pure ski-engineering thinking applied to a shoe.

Lightweight construction and GORE-TEX. Salomon's trail-running roots show in how light its hiking footwear feels. Even the leather X Ultra 360 mid boot comes in around 450g per boot, which is noticeably lighter than a traditional leather hiker. Most models come in a GORE-TEX version for UK conditions, keeping out wet grass, dew and rain over the height of the shoe.

Price: is Salomon worth it?

Salomon is a premium brand, and the pricing reflects it. Expect to pay roughly £110 to £150 for most of its hiking shoes and around £155 to £210 for its boots. That is more than a mid-market brand and a lot more than the budget end of Amazon.

Is it worth it? For the right foot, yes, and the value shows up over time rather than on day one. The construction is genuinely hard-wearing. Owners of the XA Pro in particular report it outlasting most trail shoes, with the firm midsole holding its supportive feel rather than packing out after a season. If you walk hard and often, one pair that lasts years works out cheaper than replacing a softer, cheaper shoe more frequently.

Where Salomon is not worth it is the case where the fit is wrong. A £140 shoe in the wrong shape is worse value than a £45 shoe that fits, because you will not wear it. That is the whole ball game with this brand, so it gets its own section.

If you want the cheapest honest way into the brand, the X Ultra Pioneer GTX at around £120 gives you the X Ultra feel, GORE-TEX and a Contagrip sole without top-tier money. If you want the model that best shows off what Salomon does, the XA Pro 3D is the one I would point you at.

Does Salomon run narrow?

Yes. This is the most-searched question about the brand, and the answer is the most important thing on this page: Salomon runs narrow.

Almost every Salomon shoe is built to hold the foot down hard. The heel and midfoot are locked in, and the toe box, while reasonably generous at the ball of the foot, tapers narrow towards the big toe. For a slim to medium foot that is a real strength. You get a secure, planted fit with no slop, the shoe feels like part of you on descents, and most models are comfortable straight out of the box with little or no break-in.

For a broad or high-volume foot it is the wrong shape, and no feature makes up for it. If your feet are wide, do not try to force a standard Salomon. Salomon does list dedicated Wide versions of some men's models, including the XA Pro 3D, which opens the door a little. But if your feet are genuinely broad, you will be far happier in a brand built around width. A roomy KEEN such as the Targhee III or a wide-fit Merrell Moab gives your toes the room to splay that no standard Salomon does.

The practical rule for anyone buying: try Salomon on late in the day when your feet have swollen, wear the merino socks you actually hike in, and check for a thumb-width of room ahead of your longest toe. Length runs true to size on the models I have used, so if the width suits you, take your normal size.

The Salomon kit I hike in

I own two pairs of Salomons and they cover the two ends of my walking year.

My dry-weather and mud shoe is the Salomon Speedcross 6. It is technically a trail-running shoe rather than a boot, but I have put well over 200km through mine across the Jurassic Coast and it hikes superbly on dry days and soft, muddy ground. The aggressive Mud Contagrip lugs bite into claggy Purbeck mud, it is featherlight on the foot, and the Quicklace system has never once come loose on me mid-walk. What it is not is waterproof, so wet grass soaks through the mesh and it is out of its depth in sustained winter wet.

That is exactly the gap my second pair fills. My wet and winter boot is the Salomon X Ultra 360 Leather Mid GTX. I bought it when the Speedcross started to feel inadequate in cold, boggy conditions, and it has since been through everything from Purbeck bog to Pen y Fan in January. The GORE-TEX has held through a misjudged stream crossing with a dry foot on the other side, the mid-cut collar adds the ankle support the low-cut Speedcross lacks, and it still feels light for a leather boot at around 450g.

Between those two I have most of the UK walking year covered, and both are the reason I rate the brand. One point from my own experience that backs up the fit section above: the X Ultra 360 runs slightly narrower in the forefoot than I expected even for a Salomon, so I would not order it blind if your feet are anything other than slim to medium.

Our Salomon reviews

We have reviewed four Salomon models in depth, spanning the range from fast trail shoe to waterproof winter boot.

Shop Salomon at Blacks

Prices pulled live from Blacks, updated daily. Links are affiliate links.

Salomon Men's Barrakee Outdoor Shoes

£59.97

Salomon Men's Speedcross Peak

£100

Salomon Men's X Ultra 360 Mid GORE-TEX Hiking Boots

£140

Salomon Men's X Ultra 360 GORE-TEX Hiking Shoes

£130

Salomon Men's Quest 5 GORE-TEX Walking Boots

£190

Salomon Women's Sense Ride Trail Running Shoes

£71.97

Salomon Women's X Ultra 360 GORE-TEX Hiking Shoes

£140

Salomon Men's Quest 5 Gore-Tex

£190

Salomon Men's Speedcross Peak GTX

£89.97

Salomon Men's Exeo GORE-TEX Hiking Shoes

£79.97

Salomon Men's Quest Echo Gore-Tex

£170

Salomon Women's X Ultra 360 Gore-Tex Hiking Shoes

£130

Salomon Men's Quest 4 4D GORE-TEX Hiking Boot

£139.97

Salomon Women's Exeo GORE-TEX Mid Hiking Boots

£89.97

Salomon Women's Speedcross Peak GTX Trail Running Shoes

£120

Salomon Women's Quest Echo GORE-TEX

£139.97

Salomon FAQ

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