Zapatilla Vertex Alpine Hombre

I *wanted* to love these shoes. As a long time fan of the Norvan & Kopec line of shoes, these had me grinning with excitement to try out. Day 1, horrible pain during break in. Day 3, still no difference, day 4 I started to comparing what climbing shoes I've owned that hurt this much breaking in... never found an answer. Day 5, the pain instilled on my heels was permanent, not 1, but 2 blisters on each side of my heel. Why? The heel retention "pads" are so violent in keeping your heel locked in that they created a blister on *both sides* of my achilles. Took some time away from them, let the blisters heal. Gave these things another shot, day 6, 7, 8 all the most pain I've ever felt on my foot. These shoes had me in tears, literally. Unfortunately that was not the end of my complaints, I thought why not warm these up, twist and bend them with my hands in the apartment. Why bother I thought.... the upper is so light that the shank inside seems to be working double duty on keeping the shoes structure, these things take purposeful effort to flex. The outsole, even worse... It may be vibram rubber but these are not sticky or tacky in any sense of the word. It feels like you're walking with Tupperware outsoles, these days *feel* like a plastic shoe. And the cherry on top, if they're properly sized they're a nightmare to get into. Carry a small shoe-horn with you on the trail because the "debris retention sock" really makes these a challenge to slip your foot in. Despite them being in perfect condition, and well within the return window, Arc retail stores refused a return. Complaints were valid, they even put me on a shoe size rig to tell me I bought the wrong size and that was the cause of pain (it wasn't/I didn't). A pair of bleeding heels didn't even help my case, as there was nothing functionally wrong with the shoe. I wanted to throw these away 3 times over with how bad of a product these are. Given that would be impossible to do, I left them outside of the store, sitting on the sidewalk with a little note saying "Free, SZ8, sorry for your heels". And you know what, I hate these so much I still hope those pieces of junk are still out there waiting for someone to take them home. Jackets being re-sized was a notch against Arcteryx that didn't bother me much, but the fact these made it to market is astonishing. I would easily consider these to be the worst product Arcteryx has ever made... and with having friends inside, I've tried a lot of their gear. But these, these are special. I've started clearing out the gear closet, giving away and selling Arc gear. I haven't liked what the company has been doing for a while, and this is the last straw. Vertex Alpine shoes are the last Arcteryx product I will ever buy. Good Riddance,