Better hiking shoe than approach shoe - La Sportiva Boulder X Approach Shoes - Men's

I bought these as my first pair of approach shoes knowing nothing about what an approach shoe really had to do. I was just told I needed approach shoes for an upcoming trip. Well for what the trip was (alpine climbing in the Tetons) they worked fairly well. Lots of mileage and not much actual climbing while wearing them. But as soon as we started doing some more traditional climbing with legitimate technical approaches and descents, I quickly realized they weren't the best choice. In my opinion, these are much more geared towards non-technical hiking-type approaches. I found that for actual climbing the sole has too much tread that mushes around underfoot and the way it hangs out on all sides makes edging difficult since it just wants to flex out of the way. And they definitely do run a bit small. They pinch my forefoot bad enough that its hard to wear them all day. Definitely want to size up half to one size. A very sturdy shoe though, the quality is evident. I wear FiveTen Guide Tennies now and feel that they're a much better technical shoe without sacrificing on comfort.