You can't go wrong with the made in the USA Danner boots. My wife and I both bought our first Danner boots at Warshal's about 1970. The part time sales person who recommended them was retired from the NPS, he had been the head ranger at Mount Rainer Park when it was first established. He pointed out that the folks who settled the west walked across the plains, the Rockies, and the deserts. They didn't wear Italian hiking boots and if our intention was to do a lot of walking we shouldn't either. He had a special technique of lacing and tying the laces that he learned from his lifetime of walking in the west. At the time Danner only made about 5 styles of boot, all in Portland. The cost was about $75. My wife's boots had Kangaroo uppers, wish I had done that as they were lighter, softer, and wore better. Those boots lasted about 30 years of hard use, had them resoled but finally wore holes through the lower sides from walking too many steep rocky slopes. We replaced them with the Rainforest model which are holding up well. We use them several weeks a year, hiking, fishing, hunting, and rock hounding all over the west. In the rainforest, on 10,000 foot ridges, or on the floor of Death Valley poor footwear leads to bad experiences.

For those who don't know of Warshal's do some searching to learn the history of sporting goods stores in Seattle.