Advice for slippery soles

When soles are formed from molten ooze poured into a mold they get a shiny tight surface. I think you'll find it will disappear after a while. Take them for a long bash up a river valley and the gravel & scree will bed the soles and remove the 'glaze'. Or get out the emery cloth :)

Thanks very much for the reassurance Strider, it's great to hear that the soles will likely wear in. They did seem a little better on their last outing. It's been a bit disconcerting to not have a stable footing while walking over slippery rocks and tree roots.

Some of this slipperiness is down to the profile of the sole I reckon. My husband has the Vasque St Elias (warranty replacement for his first Vasque Wasatch in which the sole cracked right through within 7 months). He finds the St Elias to be more slippery, it has a different sole profile than the Wasatch but still Vibram tech. He also has a pair of Oboz shoes and the soles are very good but the profile won't shed mud well so they clog up easily and then start to slip. I have a pair of Keen boots and the non-Vibram soles are awful on wet rocks but fine in the dry. Conversely Salomon have their own Contagrip soles and they are one of the most grippiest boots in a wide range of terrain. Pity they wear out so fast! My current boots are Scarpa Mythos and their Vibram soles are very good. The profile is similar to the Salomons which leads me to believe it's the shape of the sole, not just the rubber/vibram. @Strider is quite right though, they are glazed when new so a good river bash will do them good.

Some soles are just more grippy than others. Slippery rocks and wet wood are the ultimate test and in my experience most soles will slip on those to some extent. The ones that slip the least on those kinds of surface be the softer ones and they will wear down quite quickly, particularly if you do some miles on rock. The best thing to do is check out the reviews before buying a particular boot. Often the review will be broken down into components and scores, one of which is grip.

Interested in all your views on this. I have not found reviews that useful in the past as I only really want to buy boots I can find in a store in Wellington and try on instore. Many of the review sites I've looked at are US-based and the products are not necessarily available here. I tried on several different brands of tramping boots I could find locally and the Vasque ones seemed to be the most comfortable on my feet and the soles looked pretty robust. I didn't really suspect the soles would be slippy...

Hopefully they will get a bit better when they scuff up, but wet, slimy surfaces will nearly always require some care. Are the boots in a returnable condition? If you're stuck with them maybe next time you can focus more on finding boots whose grips rate well online (or with people on sites like this one). The buying and using of hiking boots is quite often a bit hit or miss in my experience. It's hard to tick all the boxes before splashing the cash. You get better at it with each pair. Do you use trekking poles? If not then they will make you immeasurably less likely to fall over when your boots lose grip. They look dorky but you'll never go back once you've experienced their many benefits, and they can be had for pretty cheap too.

My asolos are not that briliant on wet slimy rock or wet tree roots. I put it down to the quite stiff sole.

also depends how much carbon is in the rubber. the more carbon the harder the rubber and longer lasting, but the worse grip... and how much rubber comes into contact with hard surfaces. for rock you want as much rubber as possible in contact. for mud you want less, you want lugs to sink in to give you some purchase as you walk.

Just about everything is vibram these days Probably even the own brand soles. However they make to the brands request