It was Him or Me, honest.
I did the same trek (25 years ago) in crappy tennis shoes with a hole in the bottom of one. There was no heavy snow on the Thorung La pass, but plenty of snow between Manang and Muktinath. many of the local porters went over the pass in flip-flops. I spent 5 weeks of December/January in the Everest region, again just in runners.
I just grew up in a cold area and got used to wearing tennis shoes all the time. Boots always felt too heavy for me, but I suppose you get used to them. My feet and legs don’t seem to get cold as long as my upper half is well covered, and my ankles are strong.
If I had to stand in slush for hours doing fieldwork (or anything else), I’d be looking for a pair of serious boots.
I like hiking in sneakers too. I know boot advocates go on about the danger of twisting an ankle, blah, blah, blah, but for most trails I’ve found sneakers work just fine, they’re a heckuvalot lighter than clunky mountaineering boots, and I’ve summitted lots of peaks without suffering from a debilitating twisted ankle. But, if I know I’ll be hiking in snow, I’d definitely want something more waterproof – such as those low-top Merrills (which are basically heavy-duty, waterproof sneakers).
There’s something I should mention. I came to Taiwan in 2003, and I brought my Han Wags:
I used them for one hiking season, and I used a lot of sealers and such between hikes. The boots were praticaly new when I came to Taiwan. Just broken in you could say. I never used them, here, in Taiwan. They were stored in the closet until two months ago when I went to Canada. I took them to Canada with me because it was already snowing there. The first day I put them on, I went out with my uncle’s pickup truck. When I was using the clutch and the brake pedals, it felt like a floor mat was catching on my heals. No, it was the soles on the boots that were coming clean off. The membrane between the vibram sole and the boot was disintegrating like a 20 years old styrofoam. These are good boots we are talking about, here. People swear by these boots in the hiking community.
Lucky me, I was in Canada so I took the boots back to where I bought them for warranty. After all, I hardly wore them. They were stored for 5 years. They refused to warranty the boots. :s
The climate here chews at certain things and rusts everything in a split second. Might be worth paying attention to what material a boot is made of when you choose a footwear that you might not wear often in Taiwan. Otherwise, they die before you wear them out.
marboulette
Yeah, I’ve had rubber and foam items disintegrate bizarrely in storage here. Or was that bizarre rubber items disintegrate? Oh, never mind.
Be careful. You’re me a few years ago. NT$2,000 for a pair of good runners was fine until I twisted my ankle badly – so badly that I now have to spend NT$10,000 on those damn Lowas just to allow me to hike more than a mile or two. Watch it.
hiking boots and some gaiters if the snow is deep.
Are gaiters also those cleat-like thinghies that are strapped to shoes? I found some at one of the mountain climbing stores in Zhongshan, next door to Tienshan Store.
For 220 nts, the guy says, no more icy falls…
I came back to the office and checked the brochures, as I remembered seeing them there -didn’t know the name in English, sorry. Voila, they are along with the mangas about “which people are the most likely to fall in icy sidewalks” -drunken, distracted, in a hurry, etc… 
I mean, they are depicted along with long underwear, sensible shoes, and other precautions as to avoid being one of them…
No – I already provided a link with pictures of gaiters on p.2 of this thread. 
They’re:
The steel spikes you strap onto shoes are called crampons.
Muchas gracias. 
(but they are softer, and smaller, than the pics provided by Marboulette)