I got this job when one of my friends realized that: 1) my gear-aholism was seriously endangering my intended (some day) conversion to Buddhism; and 2) it was clear that I needed an outlet for my, um, forthright opinions other that the internet newsgroups and mailing lists where I’ve been offending more people than is probably altogether good for me. So, he suggested to the previous Gear Guy (notice I didn’t say “old” Gear Guy), that my consumptive ways could be harnessed for the greater good, and so here I am.

I promise you several things: I will give you my unvarnished opinion of gear that works as well as gear that doesn’t. If I get gear to evaluate, it’s either returned to the manufacturer or donated to the club when I’m done with it, assuming it survives. I don’t get any free gear—and even if I did, I’d get a real kick out of dissing it if it didn’t perform as advertised. I review stuff that I’m buying and using.

Focus on feet:
a review of boots

This month it’s boots; something that I’ve come to know more about than I ever expected—yet still less than I probably should. In addition to what I’ve found and liked, I’ll also talk about boots favored by my friends and climbing partners. Between us all, there’s a pretty wide variety of feet from my wife’s size 8, high arch, high volume, bunioned feet to my narrow, very flat, low volume flippers, to those of climbing partners in the size 13–15 range with widths down to AA.

I could spend lots of time spouting technical data about a wide variety of boots, but perhaps a discussion of my own personal boot search will be of some help and more interest.

La Sportiva

My boot search began about a year and a half ago when La Sportiva discontinued the M-Hike, a boot that I’d been quite happy with and in which I’d logged an impressive number of miles. Unfortunately, I missed the announcement that they were to be discontinued so wasn’t able to stock-up on them. At the same time, I needed to find some boots for spring/summer alpine climbing that climbed rock well and accepted crampons. I’d also gotten into the insane “sport” of ice climbing, so I needed some ice boots, too.

The seemingly obvious first stop after the M-Hikes was the boot that replaced it, the TRK. Much to my chagrin, however, La Sportiva had opted for a Skywalk sole for the new boot instead of the M-Hike’s Vibram Bifida sole. La Sportiva’s excuse, er, “explanation,” was that Skywalk was willing to make a custom sole to fit the boot. This, added to an increased “rocker” (i.e. upward curve) near the toe, seemed certain to compromise both its smearing and edging ability on third- to fourth-class terrain, and the search was on for a new boot.

Scarpa

My first stop was Scarpa’s Cerro Torre. A well-made boot, this model has a rather high ankle cuff, is a bit on the stiff side, and sports step-in crampon welts at toe and heel. When I initially tried the boot, I was still under the illusion that I could find a good hiking/backpacking boot that would also serve for alpine climbing. The Cerro Torre almost fit this bill except for two things. First, it is best suited to wider, higher volume feet than mine, and no combination of thicker socks and in-soles would make them feel anything but clunky to me. Also, they’re a bit heavy and stiff for a hiking and backpacking boot. However, if you have the right foot and are looking for a solid alpine or warm-conditions ice boot, the Cerro Torre should fit the bill nicely. For the Fall 2001–Winter 2002 season, Scarpa has also added an insulated version of the Cerro Torre named, oddly enough, the Thermo Cerro Torre.

This brings me to my major gripe with most boot reviews that you read in the climbing and backpacking mags. They give lots of info on weight, sizes, material, lining etc., but no one ever lists the type of foot to which the boot is best suited. Often, even shop employees don’t seem to know how to fit a boot: they try to convince you that a sock or insole will solve a fit problem. To paraphrase the number one consideration in real estate, the three most important things about selecting a boot are: fit, fit, and fit. A good fit will allow you to do things you wouldn’t think possible with a “plain Jane” boot, and a bad fit in the most technically advanced boot will leave you tripping, flailing, and possibly wincing with every step. I have yet to avail myself of the advanced boot fitting services available at some stores, but I probably should one of these days since many people I know have been helped a lot by these folks.

Vasque

I next investigated Vasque. In my pre-mountaineering days, I’d happily worn out several pairs of Sundowners (everyone’s favorite backpacking boot). I really appreciated the fact that Vasque has historically been one of the few boot makers to offer widths in their sizing. Three problems here: It is difficult, at best, to find a retailer, in town or on-line, that carriers more than one or two Vasque boots; Vasque offered (until recently) precious few heavy-backpacking/mountaineering oriented boots (that you could actually find anyway, see problem 1); and they exclusively use Skywalk soles (or so I thought).

A word here about Skywalk. In my Sundowner days, I could never understand all the rumors I heard about Skywalk rubber being slippery on rock—especially wet rock. Then I bought my first pair of Vibram-soled boots and understood the concerns. Furthermore, my BMS group had a student a couple of years ago who apparently just couldn’t get the hang of friction climbing. Finally, I looked at her boots: They were Vasques with Skywalk rubber. I suggested she either get new boots or get these re-soled with Vibram. She opted for the latter option and solved her problem. It’s possible that Skywalk has since fixed this problem, but it’s something to be aware of.

Eventually, I came across a new (at that time) Vasque boot, the Alpine GTX. Lo and behold, the sole boasted a little yellow elongated hexagon with the word “Vibram” embossed on it! To sweeten the pot, the sole also had heel and toe welts to offer a home to the bails of my Black Diamond Sabretooth crampons. Eureka! I promptly purchased a narrow pair in my size and headed to the hills. I have to admit that overall this is a pretty nice boot. However, the boot no longer is my primary mountaineering boot because the leather is too thin and pliable. Consequently, after a long day the lacing hardware begins to eat into the tops of my feet. In addition, (also noted by Backpacker in a recent review) this pliability results in the ankle being just a bit too flexible for serious crampon work. Vasque has promised a whole new line of technically-oriented boots this fall. I hope they come through.

Technica

Next stop, Technica. I have been very pleased with their Altitude Plus “ice climbing” boot. It is warm, climbs ice with aplomb, is flexible enough for French technique, and hikes surprisingly well for what one would expect to be a very stiff boot. In addition to being my primary ice climbing boot, it has become my winter mountaineering boot for one-day routes.

Technica Altitude Plus

My first two tries with their other boots were less than successful. The discontinued Vetta (basically an uninsulated leather version of the Altitude Plus) and Ascend Bio-flex TCY both ate my heels. This was a mystery until I worked out that even though both boots were the same size as my Altitude Pluses, they were too small. I assume Altitudes are made bigger to accommodate the insulation.

I’ve settled on the Stratus Bio-flex for hiking and backpacking and the “Newmatic” crampon-compatible Dunagiri Bio-flex for mountaineering. Both have seen me through quite a few miles with nary a rub or stumble. A female friend with a very different foot also finds the Stratus an excellent boot. Technica’s “Bioflex” design concept is based on embossing the leather to provide factory-direct flex points in order to reduce or eliminate break-in time. I imagine that if these factory flex points didn’t match your feet, this could be a real problem, but fortunately for me, they match mine. It’s too soon to tell, however, if this embossing process also shortens the life of the leather.

Technica Stratus Bio-Flex and Dunagiri Bio-Flex

Miscellaneous boots

Kayland Multitraction Wow! What a boot! Kayland is a recent entry to the U.S. market and have a very impressive lineup of boots and shoes. The Multitraction might be the ideal boot for spring through fall technical routes in Colorado (that don’t have too much vertical ice). Right out of the box they hike like a dream. They climb rock so well as to almost defy description. They have a heel welt for Newmatic crampon bindings. Two nits: they’re soft for extended front-pointing, but they’re really not designed for extended ice or mixed routes. They climb rock well because the sole near the toe is thin, and the rubber compound (Vibram again) is on the soft side. I can see lots of re-soles in my future before the uppers wear out. The nicest thing about Kayland is that they actually put a decent insole in their boot, not the felt crap that most manufacturers slap in on the assumption that you’re going to buy a pair of Superfeet anyway.

AKU Utah: If you like the Sundowner but want a Vibram sole; or if you pine, like I do, for Sportiva’s M-Hike, this might be the boot for you. AKU has a relatively small market presence in the U.S., but they’re a good-quality Italian boot maker that have some interesting products. The unique feature of the Utah is a single-sided tongue gusset that is intended to improve fit and reduce friction points. I like this boot a lot; it just doesn’t seem to fit my foot particularly well, which is a bummer.

Scarpa SL M3 is the first and almost only boot that my wife has ever found that didn’t absolutely destroy her feet. Straight out of the box, she wore her first pair on the eight-mile backpack into Crater Lake below Lone Eagle peak. She came home after a successful summit and ordered three more pairs. This is a good idea, by the way, if you’ve got the coin to pull it off. Some boot makers seem constantly to be fiddling with and “improving” their products. Scarpa seems to be mostly immune to this annoying habit, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. My friend with the size 15 feet also finds the SLs to be about the best boots that he has he’s come across.

Scarpa SL M3

Scarpa Alpha: A great, warm, comfy, and non-clunky ice climbing boot (or so my wife tells me), but some reports indicate it may not hold up well to extensive hiking. These also fall into the class of boots that blister my wife’s feet if she hikes in them for any distance.

Various other Sportiva models: I carried a seventy-two pound pack up to the Boulderfield in a pair of Trango Plus boots the day before climbing the Cables Route last June. We climbed the route the next day and hiked out. The boots performed great with and without crampons and, somewhat to my surprise, my feet survived. There’s a little too much padding under the tongue, which tended to rub the tops of my toes a bit, but with performance like this, who can complain?

Sportiva has come out with several variations on or updates to the Trango and Trango Extreme, including the Trango Ice and Trango S. This latter boot is a bit of a mystery to me. It seems to follow a new Sportiva philosophy that if you support the foot well and keep it close to the ground you don’t need much (any?) ankle support. Apparently designed to replace the Trango Plus eventually, its upper consist of woven fabric that I suspect will be next to impossible to waterproof. Despite being intended as an alpine and rock climbing boot and being pretty flexible overall, the boot sports a heavily rockered toe area. I suspect this will seriously compromise its climbing performance.

One last thing about boots. Many people really love the Superfeet insoles. I find them to be too thick under the heel, which tends to pop my heel out of the heel cup and sometimes cause blisters. In addition, since my very flat feet don’t have much built-in shock absorption, my forefoot tends to need more padding than average. This would seem to be a difficult problem to solve. The non-custom insoles that I’ve found that work great for me are “Downunders” made by Walkabout International Inc. of LaPine, Oregon. I first found these in a local shop, but no one now seems to carry them in Denver. I ordered my last two pairs off the web. Highly recommended. If you have unusual feet though, there’s no substitute for custom insoles.