The Mount to Coast H1. All photos: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
For those looking for a high-mileage shoe that can transition seamlessly from roads to gentle trails, the Mount to Coast H1 ($160) has plenty of features that allow it to do just that. From the outsole with its low-profile lugs to an upper that locks in the foot without feeling stiff, this shoe uses aspects of both road and trail shoes to create a hybrid that can perform on a variety of terrains.
The road-to-trail category of shoes is growing rapidly, and the best options don’t feel like overkill on roads, yet can handle some trails. The Mount to Coast H1 runs this line well. With an actual weight of 8.5 ounces (242 grams) for a U.S. men’s size 9, it’s relatively light, especially considering the 35-millimeter stack height under the heel and 29 millimeters under the forefoot. The 6-millimeter drop allows it to excel both on roads and trails and accommodate a variety of runners.
iRunFar’s Travis Liles takes a detailed look at the Mount to Coast H1 from bottom to top in the video below.
Shop the Men's Mount to Coast H1Shop the Women's Mount to Coast H1
[Editor’s Note: Click here to watch the review on YouTube.]
Mount to Coast H1 Review Transcript
Hey, welcome to Trail Trials, the video review section of iRunFar.com. My name is Travis Liles, and in this video, we’re going to take a look at the Mount to Coast H1. Let’s check it out.
The H1 from Mount to Coast. H stands for hybrid. This shoe comes in at 8.5 ounces in a U.S. men’s size 9. It is 35 millimeters at the heel. It is 29 millimeters at the toe and uses an interesting foam midsole for durability. It has this dual-lacing system, and some lugs that sort of work on a lot of different terrain. Let’s get up close and personal. Let’s see what the shoe is all about.
Mount to Coast H1 Outsole
The outsole of the Mount to Coast H1 has low-profile, 2-millimeter lugs that provide a little bit of traction.
All right, let’s dig in and start with the Mount to Coast H1 outsole here. The outsole on a hybrid shoe is generally not going to have the lug depth profile that you might want or expect on a full-bore trail running shoe, and that’s exactly what you’re getting here.
You do have the patterning of a trail running shoe and what you hope to have there. You’ve got rear-facing lugs here in the back to catch dirt when you’re braking going downhill. Then you’ve got forward-facing lugs here in the front when you’re going uphill and want to grip. They’re not that deep, only about two millimeters in depth. You can see that these are slightly worn down, because I do wear them on the road. That said, this has held up really well. I think durability-wise, this is positive for these shoes.
The big thing to note here is that the goal is to get out the front door, run on some road, get on some dirt trail, maybe get on some gravel, and then come back around on that loop. And this is the type of shoe that you can wear for that whole thing, and I absolutely agree it does really well for that. I put it through some different conditions, got into really nasty snow and rock and wet stuff, and I would say it performed admirably. Much better than a road shoe or some other hybrid shoes that I’ve worn. I think some of that is the patterning, but when you really want grip and are getting out in the muck, this is not the outsole for that. But that’s the point of the shoe, really, to be a little bit of everything without going too far. It’s a shoe that you can have with you and do anything, including road running. And these lugs definitely don’t get in the way of that.
Just one comment on the compound here: This is something called VersaGrip. This is Mount to Coast’s own proprietary system. They have other shoes where they use Vibram, specifically in the Mount to Coast T1. This does not. This has VersaGrip, but again, works well across a lot of variety of conditions. Its biggest downfall is going to be lug depth. But again, you know what you’re getting into because this is marketed as a hybrid shoe.
Mount to Coast H1 Midsole
The Mount to Coast H1 CircleCELL midsole foam offers protection and rebound.
I think where the Mount to Coast H1 really does well on that hybrid place is here in the middle. I mentioned a 6-millimeter drop, so it’s not too high, it’s not too low. It’s got enough of a drop for trail and not feeling off balance and off kilter, but it’s also low enough to the ground that you do get a little more feel than something that’s got a really tall wedge on it, and technical terrain might make you bounce from one side to the other.
This uses something called CircleCELL, which is a supercritical type of foam. This is made from recycled material. What really stands out on this is the bounce. Just squeezing on this shoe, you really get a rebound-y type of feel. You can see, without much pressure from my thumb and fingers, that it’s really pushing into the shoe. It’s squishy. It moves around really well. It does provide a pretty decent amount of protection, given the thickness of this foam to absorb when you’re on rough and rocky terrain, but it flows really nicely as well.
This is supposed to hold up over a long distance, and not just long single distance, but over a long amount of time. This is a shoe that, even in the box, tells you right out of the gate: This is a shoe that’s meant to last a long time. It has a really nice feel. It feels springy. It feels lively. It’s lively enough to use on a road run and get turnover and move fast. And it’s also, I think, squishy enough that when you’re running on more rocky types of terrain, that it’s absorbing and doesn’t make your feet tired. A really good, let’s call it a unicorn midsole, that can do a lot for you. Again, as a hybrid shoe, that’s a super good point that it’s able to hit. And I would say this midsole does a really fine job of doing that.
Mount to Coast H1 Upper
The Mount to Coast H1 upper uses aspects of both road and trail shoes to create a supportive structure.
Continuing on to the Mount to Coast H1 upper. Again, Mount to Coast did a really smart job in the way they assembled all of this. The upper really has some various components that I think all mesh well together. Part of that is more of this engineered jacquard upper up here at the top by the laces. So more of a new type of material. But then, as you go down, it starts to get into more of the classic materials: rubber overlay in these high-abrasion areas, a little denser mesh in some of these lower parts of the shoe. It’s able to take some of these, I’d say, old-school techniques as well as new-school techniques, and kind of mesh those things together.
You have an upper that feels modern, that feels locked down. It’s not too stretchy. A lot of 3D mesh uppers get too stretchy, and they stretch out, and they don’t really lock your foot in. That may be fine for a road shoe, but not fine for a trail shoe. They brought those two or three types of patterns together to really give you, I think, the best of everything, or at least examples of ways to do that. By giving you high abrasion resistance here at the front of the toe, you get a decent toe bumper. Here at the front, you’ve got mostly regular types of mesh that are sturdy, and it feels like it’s going to hold up. You’ve got more of this soft, modern upper part around the laces. And it all comes together to do what I think is a fairly good job of locking your foot down, with the upper not being too baggy and too loose and too stretchy. It’s got just the right amount in all these places.
One of the ways that they do that is with this lacing system. On top of having these various materials, they’re also giving you this lacing option. All of their shoes have this dual lacing. This one comes with laces built in at the top, and then quick-laces here at the bottom. It also comes with another set of laces so you can cut these out, and you can lace up tops and bottoms. Once you cut this, though, they’re done. I made that mistake on another pair. What this does is really allows you to kind of lock in that bottom part of the shoe, and then adjust the top depending on the type of run that you’re doing. What I found worked well for road running was that I never touched this. I mainly just adjusted this one up here. And then for trail running, when I’m getting ready to do a downhill, I might pull on this and bring this down, and not touch the upper part of the lacing. That’s going to be something to fiddle with.
In this type of hybrid, do-everything shoe, I think giving you a couple of lacing options is a pretty interesting way to do that. From the tongue standpoint, you can see a little bit in here. It’s not really gusseted. It’s more of just a stay that keeps the tongue from falling to one side or the other.
And from a midsole standpoint, nothing too exciting here. Just a kind of a standard sock liner. Really, the bulk of your cushioning, the bulk of your everything, is this midsole, the star of the show.
Mount to Coast H1 Overall Impressions
The hybrid nature of the Mount to Coast H1 lets it perform on a variety of terrain.
In closing. I think the Mount to Coast H1 is a really good overall shoe for a hybrid shoe. I did a lot of things in the shoe: a lot of road running, trail running on some very basic buffed-out trails in the Forest Park of Portland, which tends to be softer ground dirt, and as the season goes on, hard dirt, but not a lot of technical. I’ve worn this shoe in the snow. I’ve worn this shoe over technical terrain, uphill, steep downhills, and it’s got its place, and it’s not the more technical, at least for my liking. That said, it actually performed better than I thought it would. Its only major downside is the lug depth, which, again, this shoe is meant to be a hybrid shoe, not an everything shoe. In that snow, I wish I would have had the T1, which is the trail version of this shoe with deeper lugs, kind of more cleats. Those would have been a better fit for it.
But in terms of durability, it’s held up really well. If you followed the Burrito League last year, there’s actually a piece of paper in the box that comes out and tells you: This is the shoe that Jamil Coury wore for 600 of the 700-plus miles. It holds up well, seems to have its bounce, and it comes in at a pretty decent price point compared to a lot of the shoes on the market. My only thing is: I just don’t care for the dual lacing system. In fact, on the T1s, I cut all this out and just put regular laces in it. But your mileage may vary on that. It is nice for just a quick adjustment, but you adjust twice instead of just once. A more tailored fit, but more fiddling, is what I found. Again, your mileage may vary. If you’re looking for a hybrid shoe, something that can do a lot of everything, this is a good use case. I actually take mine traveling quite a bit, because I can run on roads if I’m in Chicago and I can’t get to the trail, or New York. Or if I’m somewhere even more interesting, I can also just have this and bust out and get on a trail run really easily. And it sort of works in both of those. It’s most at home to me on buffed out smooth trail or even a little bit of gravel hard-pack. This shoe really excels on that type of terrain.
So, questions, comments? Have you checked out Mount to Coast yet? Which versions? This is the hybrid version. I think you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of it. No pun intended, but that is actually what they’re trying to do with it. Questions? comments? Leave those below the video. Thanks for watching. We’ll catch you next time.
Shop the Men's Mount to Coast H1Shop the Women's Mount to Coast H1
Call for Comments
- Have you tried the Mount to Coast H1? What did you think?
- What are your thoughts on the current wave of hybrid running shoes?
Our Favorite Road-to-Trail Running Shoes
Check out our Best Road-to-Trail Running Shoes article to learn about our current favorite hybrid running shoes!
