Re-ran brown course from April, 2003 which was my first O-event in US.
I've decided to test a new pair of shoes that I am planning to use for orienteering:
Montrail Highlander. My frustration with Inov-8s that give me nasty heel blisters made me spend a couple of hours online searching for an alternative. I came across Highlander's review on some adventure racing website. After some thinking I ordered them on
zappos.com.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the shoes. No blisters, not even slight hint of soreness on my heels. The shoes have a decent grip on steep hills. It was very wet today and I didn't have any problems running uphill on wet grass. On wet soil they were slipping though. The shoes have smaller cleats than Inov-8s do. So, probably Inov-8s are better traction-wise. I don't think there is much difference though.
Finally, a US company made a decent fell running shoe. We'll see how long it's going to last.