GRIP
I found the Patagonia Ultralights slipped the least when tested side-by-side with the others. Part of the official name of the boots is  “Sticky” and they proved to be just that. RockGrip soles, the sticky part, provide lugged tread patterns on the edges for teetering on rocks and star-shaped tread on the rest of the sole for gripability on flat areas. I found the combination effective in all wading situations.

COMFORT
I slipped my feet into the Ultralights and nearly forgot they were wading boots. The Ultralights’ solid ankle support came in handy when leaping across boulder fields and a reinforced toe box protected my toes from rollers and stubbing injuries. There also seemed to be no break-in time required. While it can take multiple trips to figure out if some wading boots will work for your feet, the Patagonia Ultralights felt comfortably broken in right out of the box.

WET WEIGHT
The Patagonia Ultralights went from being the lightest out of the box (1.5 pounds) to the second heaviest (2.35 pounds) after they had been worn in water. But the wet-weight wasn’t excessive and they dried quickly.

CONSTRUCTION
While I experienced no problems with the construction myself, I did hear some user concerns about the stitching on the Ultralights.

TREAD LIFE
Making the boots lightweight has likely reduced the tread life in–that’ been the case with Patagonia’s previous models. But the RockGrip sole design with the more durable lugs around the sticky sections should drastically improve the life of the boots.

VALUE
The Ultralights came in as the highest priced of the four models I field tested but they were within $50 of the cheapest model (Korkers).

We field tested the boots in a variety of conditions, from the pebbly beaches of Puget Sound while chasing Sea-Run Cutthroats, to the fast waters of the Salmon River in Idaho. We wore each pair of boots for multiple days, and wore mixed pairs on multiple occasions – that is, one model on our left foot, another on our right – to get direct side-by-side comparisons.