Chalky gravel. Deep blue lakes. Cows wearing bells. Jagged mountains. Lush green fields. And the faint sound of a Fiat Panda 4×4 in the distance. Welcome to the Dolomites. A place that has lived rent-free in our minds (and Instagram feeds) for what feels like eternity.
Just over a decade ago, the Dolomites were named as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites for outstanding beauty – but to be honest, we reckon this stretch of the Italian Alps deserves its own designation: outstanding, mind-boggling, unfathomable, how-is-this-even-real beauty. Yeah, much better.
But don’t be fooled by the Dolomites’ insane aesthetics. Unlike the Windows Screensaver you look at every morning in your dreary office, the Dolomites can and will punish you if you ask for it. The region is home to some of the hardest hiking and climbing in the world – and when you’re hanging 3,000 ft from the ground on a blank wall with clouds in your hair and tears in your eyes, all that picturesqueness is pushed firmly to the back of your mind.
We’ve been itching to get out to the Dolomites forever, and Danner proved to be the brand to get us there, tasking us with testing their new MTN45 & N45 models. We made sure to allow for plenty of time to take in the Dolomites’ breathtaking scenery before Danner inevitably sent us up something so terrifying we’d forget all about it. But then they revealed that wasn’t to be the case. No scrambling over cloud-piercing summits. No shuffling across the side of a cliff face. No panic attack-inducing heights.
Instead, they simply wanted us to hike around and take in every ounce of beauty the Dolomites had to offer.
That might sound like a fairly straightforward assignment, but we found that the Dolomites have a clever knack for putting a stop to your hike every fifteen steps. Each trail seems to lead towards another impossibly dramatic ridgeline, another turquoise lake, another perched mountain hut – and we were trying (and failing miserably) to ignore all of them. We had promised Danner an honest review of their footwear, but our eyes were getting in the way of things.
Eventually, when we did manage to string a few uninterrupted steps together, we discovered that the N45 & the MTN45 felt right at home in the Dolomites’ signature chalky gravel tracks. Both are low hikers, both are designed for covering ground gracefully rather than fighting your way through it, but both go about the task slightly differently…
The MTN45 feels like the more steady option, with a bit more support underfoot for when the terrain starts to tilt upwards. It’s the kind of shoe you don’t really notice until you stop and realise your legs are still feeling surprisingly good for how far you’ve travelled. The N45, on the other hand, strips things back. Lighter, quicker, more at home on the kind of trails where you start off going for a short walk and eventually find yourself staring into the valley trying to work out which faint black speck is your Airbnb.
We were loving everything about Danner’s low hikers. The cushioned midsole. The comfy sock liners. The laces that never seem to come undone. The aesthetics. The rugged dependability. But undoubtedly our favourite thing about both was that without them, we wouldn’t have been able to explore the mind-boggling scenery laid out in front of us…
They were there when we were gawping at enormous limestone towers. When we were stopping far too often to take photographs. When we were consuming alarming quantities of espresso. When we were eating lunches with views that felt like they’d had the saturation turned up to 100. Danner’s low hikers were on foot for all of it.
And at its core, that’s what we loved the most. Footwear like the N45 & MTN45 is the only real equipment you need to actually visit the Windows Screensaver in your dreary office – something you’ve longed to be a reality every morning as you boot up your computer and slurp your lukewarm coffee (which is definitely not as good as the stuff you get in the Dolomites, rest assured).
Because at times, we can overegg this whole exploring-the-outdoors thing. All you really need is a pair of shoes that can withstand the trials and tribulations of a few days of moderate walking. A T-shirt for your back. A jacket for when it rains. And preferably some trousers too. And the good news is you’ll find all of that in Danner’s apparel range, designed with the same no-nonsense, rugged dependability that is at the core of the MTN45 & the N45.
So, next time you find yourself longing to visit an area you’ve only ever seen when starting up your laptop – have a check of the next available flight, make sure to pack a good pair of shoes. And if it happens to be the Dolomites, a camera too.
Find out more about Danner’s MTN45 & N45 models at Danner
