While our conditions here aren't as steep as what you have (unless you look off the map...), we're one of the few areas where we can ride year round, often in wet conditions, in forested mountains. I also have a tough time wanting to test tires, because once you find what works, it's hard to motivate yourself to take risk for a change, but you don't find improvements if you don't try, so I suck it up every so often.
I was on WTB for a while, the "new" Vigilante up front does really well in most mixed conditions, but seems to prefer wet, soft dirt over anything else and grips considerably better than any Maxxis tire (Caveat is that I've never run any MaxxGrip tires) I've run. The Trail Boss rear, for what it is, does surprisingly well (grip in the wet is better than the Aggressor, but it wears very quickly) for not super sloppy conditions. The Judge is probably the grippiest rear tire I've used, at the cost of comfort due to the casing.
All that said, I recently got a 2020 Enduro that came with GRID Trail Butchers (2.6f/2.3r), the 2020 variant (these were revised for 2020 with new compounds and casings, the 2019 is different and not easy to distinguish even on the box, you have to check the serial \#). I expected to remove them immediately based on prior attempts with Specialized tires, which I found to have weepy casings, tear/pinch flat easily, and unpredictable traction. The surprise to me was that I kept them both on and have been very pleased, even though it's been a pretty wet year for us here, they've done really well on almost everything I've tried them. The only time they start to suffer is on really mucky, wet, muddy conditions where you'd want a mud tire, but even Minions suffer in those conditions.
The 2020 seems to be an entirely different animal than previous models, because I've kept them on and been really pleased with them even in wet conditions. The volume of the 2.3 in the rear is surprisingly large, mine measured 58mm k2k and 61mm at the carcass, being much closer to a 2.4 on 30mm IW rims (EX511). The front 2.6 is not huge for a 2.6 (64 k2k, 65 casing), but it's good enough.
What I've found is that the braking and cornering traction are both really good, I'd say they give up a little bit of performance in soft dirt and mud to the WTB tires I'd previously run, but they continue to surprise me in off camber, wet sections of trail, even in the snow. We had a pretty snowy, wet ride the other day on a notoriously narrow trail here and they continued to surprise me how well they gripped going down despite the conditions. Even on the muddy sections, they held on surprisingly well. I found myself letting off more and more as the ride went on, continuing to be surprised at how well the tires gripped given the conditions, which consisted of a mix of snow, soft dirt, and off camber roots on narrow handlebar width trail.
Feb. 13, 2020, 6:51 a.m. - Shinook
While our conditions here aren't as steep as what you have (unless you look off the map...), we're one of the few areas where we can ride year round, often in wet conditions, in forested mountains. I also have a tough time wanting to test tires, because once you find what works, it's hard to motivate yourself to take risk for a change, but you don't find improvements if you don't try, so I suck it up every so often. I was on WTB for a while, the "new" Vigilante up front does really well in most mixed conditions, but seems to prefer wet, soft dirt over anything else and grips considerably better than any Maxxis tire (Caveat is that I've never run any MaxxGrip tires) I've run. The Trail Boss rear, for what it is, does surprisingly well (grip in the wet is better than the Aggressor, but it wears very quickly) for not super sloppy conditions. The Judge is probably the grippiest rear tire I've used, at the cost of comfort due to the casing. All that said, I recently got a 2020 Enduro that came with GRID Trail Butchers (2.6f/2.3r), the 2020 variant (these were revised for 2020 with new compounds and casings, the 2019 is different and not easy to distinguish even on the box, you have to check the serial \#). I expected to remove them immediately based on prior attempts with Specialized tires, which I found to have weepy casings, tear/pinch flat easily, and unpredictable traction. The surprise to me was that I kept them both on and have been very pleased, even though it's been a pretty wet year for us here, they've done really well on almost everything I've tried them. The only time they start to suffer is on really mucky, wet, muddy conditions where you'd want a mud tire, but even Minions suffer in those conditions. The 2020 seems to be an entirely different animal than previous models, because I've kept them on and been really pleased with them even in wet conditions. The volume of the 2.3 in the rear is surprisingly large, mine measured 58mm k2k and 61mm at the carcass, being much closer to a 2.4 on 30mm IW rims (EX511). The front 2.6 is not huge for a 2.6 (64 k2k, 65 casing), but it's good enough. What I've found is that the braking and cornering traction are both really good, I'd say they give up a little bit of performance in soft dirt and mud to the WTB tires I'd previously run, but they continue to surprise me in off camber, wet sections of trail, even in the snow. We had a pretty snowy, wet ride the other day on a notoriously narrow trail here and they continued to surprise me how well they gripped going down despite the conditions. Even on the muddy sections, they held on surprisingly well. I found myself letting off more and more as the ride went on, continuing to be surprised at how well the tires gripped given the conditions, which consisted of a mix of snow, soft dirt, and off camber roots on narrow handlebar width trail.