From a distance the Boreal Ordesas look like most other 2-3 season leather walking boots, with a slight drop towards the heel in the upper and a slightly streamlined style.
They probably aren’t going to the be the first choice of hardcore vegans, being made mostly from a 2.4mm Nubuck leather with some smaller synthetic panels around the ankle and on the tongue. One large panel of hand-cut leather sweeps from below the ankle on the outside of the foot, around the toebox and down to partway along the inside of the foot. Several smaller leather panels are then stitched together for the contoured heel. The tongue is mostly a synthetic fabric (Teramida SL) with leather patches under the high-wear points for the laces.
Refreshingly, these boots aren’t dripping with tags and ‘technologies’ that call every single curve and fastening a unique name. The feature that stands out is the Boreal Heel Fit System of contoured foam pieces designed to hold the heel securely without movement. As most of that is buried under the boot lining there isn’t much to see, but if you hold the boot interior up to the light then you can indeed see some subtle shaping and shadowing from all of those carefully placed lumps and bumps.
As a stitched leather boot with panels it unsurprisingly comes with a membrane liner to keep your foot dry – in this case the Boreal Dry-Line.
Original Outdoors is an outdoor skills and training business in North Wales, established in 2003. We offer public courses in a wide variety of subjects, private training and consultancy for organisations of all sizes.
In 2020 we moved our popular outdoor gear reviews, news and tutorial posts over to this new portal.