In 1989, a river guide named Mark Paigen was tired of watching flip-flops float away downstream. Working in Paonia, Colorado, he built a sandal with a single continuous strap threaded through the sole, adjustable to any foot, that would not come off in whitewater. The Z-strap Chaco was born on the river, and the company has never forgotten it: to this day Chaco says rivers are the reason the sandals exist at all.
The short version: Chaco, founded 1989 in Colorado and owned since 2009 by Wolverine World Wide, makes the definitive adjustable sport sandal, built for water, rafting, and canyon travel, and repairable for life. Buy it for river days, desert creek crossings, and feet that want one strap system dialed to the millimeter. Skip it if you want lightweight or subtle; Chacos are burly, and proudly so.
Where Chaco came from
The Paonia workshop turned a guide’s frustration into a cult object: the LUVSEAT footbed earned a podiatric seal, and the ReChaco program will re-web, re-sole, and rebuild a worn pair rather than replace it. Production moved to Michigan under Wolverine (which also owns Merrell and Saucony) after 2009, but the river-first identity survived the acquisition intact, which is rarer than it should be.
What they actually make well
Sport sandals, singularly: the Z/1 and Z/2 with their signature strap, the Chillos camp line, and increasingly closed-toe water shoes. This is not a quiver brand; it is a brand that makes one thing better than anyone. For closed hiking footwear, its stablemate KEEN and cousins like Teva cover the neighboring ground.
Built to last?
The ReChaco repair program is the whole sustainability argument, and it is a strong one: a resoled, re-webbed sandal is the greenest sandal. Durability is almost comical; people hand down decade-old Chacos. The tension is the parent company, a large publicly traded footwear group whose priorities are its own, but Chaco’s repairability has so far outlasted the corporate reshuffles.
The causes they actually fund
True to the origin, Chaco’s giving flows to rivers: support for American Rivers and its wild-river campaigns, and public advocacy against shrinking protected lands, including the fight over Bears Ears on the Colorado Plateau. Rivers made the sandal; the sandal gives back to rivers.
Where this gear comes from, and where it earns its place
Born on Colorado’s rivers, at home anywhere trail meets water: canyon bottoms, desert creek crossings, and the riparian corridors in our Sonoran Desert guide. Find a route that gets your feet wet on the Trail Atlas.
The honest take
They are heavy, they can rub until you build the callus, and the aesthetic is unmistakably outdoorsy. But no sandal survives whitewater, canyon miles, and a decade of abuse like a Chaco, and no competitor’s repair program touches ReChaco. For river people, there is no argument.
Born on the river, still giving back to it. More makers in Brands We Love. Last verified July 2026.