The LOWA Casara GTX ($185) is a winter shoe to take on any and all urban assaults in the style of a rugged, warm, waterproof winter boot but cross-pollinated with a Chuck Taylor high-top sneaker for a chick modern style.
No Lacing Required
With a five-inch shaft height, it’s not too terribly an ordeal to enter the traditional way. However, the LOWA Casara GTX offers two convenient access points: zip on/off or lace on/off. My preference is to just zip and go. It took me a few iterations to get the laces dialed in for zipper entry.
If the laces were too loose, the Casaras had too much wiggle room and felt a little clumsy (this could be a recipe for blisters if you’re going to walk in them all day). If I laced them tighter, they felt nice and snug (although still very comfortable) but then I put them back, zipping the zipper required a degree of strength I didn’t possess in my fingers. So, experiment. Find your sweet spot. When you do, you’ll never have to touch the laces again.
Warm and Waterproof Innards
The LOWA Casara GTX’s derive their insulation from a GORE-TEX Panda® lining. I’m going to be completely transparent in that I have no idea what GORE-TEX Panda lining is. I searched and searched and searched, all over the GORE-TEX site for a technology description but no go. What I can say is that there are two ranges of GORE-TEX products: Original and Infinium. Original is “best-in-class waterproof protection”, as well as windproof and breathable. Infinium is “high-performance in drier weather conditions. The label in the Casara’s delivery box was that of Original. Therefore, they offer waterproof protection.
Has this been my experience with the Casara’s? Yes. With the exception of walking in deep snow, I wear the Casara’s everywhere. Minnesota’s winter of 2020-2021 has been a lottery. It came on like a lion in early November, giving me hope that we’d have a cold winter with ample snow. But then it went out like a lamb in December, melting our snowpack into slurries of slush. Then came a week of below zero temps, followed by a week of milder temperatures and snow.
This cycle has repeated itself ever since. I tell you this because I have worn the Cassara’s through all these cycles (in an urban setting) and the GORE-TEX lining has kept my feet dry and warm — especially on the day I renewed my driver’s license and had to wait outside in a line for 40 minutes when it was 22 degrees. All around me, miserable souls jogged in place or tapped side to side in a futile effort to keep the blood flow circulating in their feet. I just stood in one place, feet warm, loathing the DMV like any normal day.
Traction
LOWA named the Casara’s outsole the “LOWA® Sneaker Winter. It has a serrated stud arrangement that helps to shed snowpack on sidewalks, which helps to resist and mitigate slips, skids and slides.
If you plan to be walking on frozen, icy snow or ice you’ll be happy to know that they are Kahtoola MICROspike and Kahtoola NANOspike compatible. Should you want to walk snow that is deeper than 2-3 inches, they’re also compatible with Kahtoola INSTAgaiter Mid gaiters.
Fit
The Casara’s run true to size—your actual shoe size. I wear a size 7.5 shoe but always go up to an 8 in hiking boots, which is the size I requested in my sample pair. At first I thought I should go with a 7.5 since technically they’re a shoe not a boot. But I went with the 8 figuring if they felt on the big side I could wear a thicker sock.
The bottom line is that the 8’s work because I’m wearing a thicker sock. My advice is if you have the opportunity to try them on, try on your actual size and a half-size up for comparison. Just be sure to try them on with a sock weight that you expect to wear with them. I wear a merino wool hiking sock; the same type of sock I wear in hiking boots. If you aren’t able to try them on first, go with the half-size up and plan to wear a thicker sock. Either way, I think, you’ll be fine.
Final Thoughts
Just when I thought my LOWA Alba II GTX’s were my go-to winter boot for wintry city streets, LOWA came up with the Casara’s. While the Casara’s don’t have the same terrain range as the Alba II’s, they still have all the finely-tuned details that makes a LOWA a LOWA: Outstanding traction, supportive, comfortable, warm, rugged, durable, well-made (in Europe, not China) and generally just good looking.
Well done again, LOWA.
