BOOTS BOOTS (touring) BOOTS

I have a FT Seth Morrison as my inbounds/park boot, and I have a Maestrale RS as my touring/pow day boot. Not overkill really, all depends on if you have the money to buy 2 boots pretty much. Crossover boots are getting better and better these days, so if you only want one then it doesn’t hurt! The XT series is great on the downhill but the range of motion leaves a little to be desired overall. Depending on how much touring you’re gonna be doing, you could check out something like the Rossi Alltrack 110 or K2 Mindbender 120, these are boots with a higher ROM. If that isn’t a big factor for you, the XT is very similar so it would be an easy transition for you

It all depends on what you are realistically gonna do and can afford.
I (for a long time) thought it would be great to have a tour/side-country binding and it would open the door to the BC gates.
You know what happened when I got F12s on my skis? To this day I've only skinned like 8 days in the last 5 years.
Partly because I worked labor jobs on the mountain, partly cause Im lazy on days off.

If you are already hitting the sidecountry/bc I'd say get two set ups because lightness is worth its weight in gold.

If your just looking to see if you like it or just want a set up for full moon parties keep it at one boot and embrace the suffer. Or rent.

Also there are people out there with way too many boots and skis. What can you afford and keep is the real question?

I have a pair of B&E pros for my resort boot (with stiff tongues) and a pair of Tecnica Cochise 130 boots for my AT boots. I like both. However, my goal is maximal skiing for minimal effort. The Tecnica boots kind of suck for going uphill. They are heavy and the walk mode is not awesome. However, I really just want to huck my meat off of cliffs. So I would rather suffer going uphill. If you want to bag peaks or do skimo, then get a boot that sucks at going down. I am not sure there is a great in between.

So I have 3x freeride/touring boots
Lange XT LV110
Dynastar Beast Carbon
Full Tilt Ascendant



Lange is very good for downhill, pretty stiff going up.
Dynastar is very complicated, super light weight and very flexible
FT is heavy, the most comfortable by far. DH performance is very good but transitions are longer sorting the boot out

So you have to trade off whatever you want...

My fave is the FT, I’m a heavy guy so if I wanna save grams I can swerve the McNuggets. If I have to take my skis off the Dynastars would be my go too.

People I work with love the Maestrale RS but didn’t fit me as good as the FT.

The shift is a good binding again sacrificing weight and speed at transitions for performance/comfort.

eheethHave a question...

Right now I have a pair of RX130s, sized down for performance but not the most comfortable off the hill and I'd definitely not want to climb up a hill in them (so don't want to get like a cast conversion).

This year I'm keen on getting a touring setup, probably with a set of shifts, and I'm not sure what to do re the boot situation.

Should I keep my RX130s and get a pair of actual touring boots, or at least something like the atomic hawk ultra xtd... oRRR, should I just get rid of my RX130s, and get something like the Freetour XT 130s, which have similar enough downhill performance but aren't as great on the ups as a dedicated boot? Do people here have a two boot setup or is that probably overkill???

Keep your current alpine boot and add some modern crossover boot that is on the lighter side of spectrum, e.g. Atomic Hawx XTD, Salomon MTN Lab or new Salomon Shift Pro (next year release), K2 mindbender, Dynafit Hoji Free - whatever fits you well and doesn’t cost much. (If you want to be able to demo skis in such boots - Gripwalk sole is the best probably, as it supported by almost every modern freeride binding) They ski good, walk good. If you think, they are not enough for resort or you don’t want to trash them in park - just switch back to your alpine Lange and that’s all.


I have Dalbello krypton for resort/park and atomic hawx XTD. I don't see huge difference between these boots on soft snow in downhill performance.

**This post was edited on Jan 14th 2020 at 5:28:38pm

i run rs130 resort, xtd130 for touring. would not want one boot to try and cover both.

1000% get a dedicated touring boot..

I mean. I even have a dedicated touring boot for my touring boots.. I’m running a Cochise and a scarpa F1.

Dont know what your binding situations is, but for me all my bindings (STH16 and FKS) are not compatible for anything other then DIN soled boots. I had no choice but to get dedicated touring boots and keeping my Lange XT130 for resort riding. I think its the better choice anyway, dedicated touring boots have pretty awsome downhill performance these days and generelly speaking I think most people dont ski as hard in the BC compared to the resort. Touring boots usually come in lighter and with more cuff mobility then inbetweener boots (although the Hawx is pretty close to the best of both worlds in one boot) anyway, and when you are lugging those puppies on your feet all day every gram counts.

Went to my bootstore to buy the Lange XT130 free today, they came on sale for -60% but ended up with the technica cochise dyn 130.. not on sale , but decent price.

Lange was a good fit for me, and a good boot, but the walking function was very lacking, more than numbers suggest and the boot just seems a bit dated, they are coming with a new XT3 for next year that I'm following closely, the recent podcast on the xt3 and lange in general was very good!

Both are heavy boots and not fit for all day tours imho, but I hate the up part, and focus on the down part.

My hope/plan is to be able to use the dyn 130 at least where I usually use my 110 (misc fun and chill general stuff) I dont see it replaceing my gofast 130 atomic.


I have 3 pairs, 110 flex technica as they are a chill boot stiffer than number suggests, not as forward as a racing, but great for thoose days with some apres, some powder, some park, some fun, and maybe 8 hours on slopes before hitting the apres. atomic hawk 2.0 130 for going fast and chargeing a bit more, and now the cochise dyn 130, which I hope will replace the 110 boots.

**This post was edited on Jan 21st 2020 at 8:19:00am

**This post was edited on Jan 21st 2020 at 8:24:52am

Another thing to keep in mind which could cut your boot collection down is throwing a burlier liner in your boots and keeping the lighter stock liners for days out of the resort. I would argue the first thing you notice when skiing a touring boot is the lack of a powerful, dampening liner. You could throw something like a zip fit or intuition liner in your boots and really smarten them up to feel closer to a standard alpine boot.
Just a thought from personal experience.

DingoSean1000% get a dedicated touring boot..

I mean. I even have a dedicated touring boot for my touring boots.. I’m running a Cochise and a scarpa F1.

Dont go 1000% - going from a RX130 to a scarpa F1 or Atomic Backland would be hilarious, but still.

Sell the RX130's and get something stiff but built for touring, like the XTD, Cochise, etc. One boot solution... until you get hooked even more and get into ultralight and skimo.

RudyGarmischDont go 1000% - going from a RX130 to a scarpa F1 or Atomic Backland would be hilarious, but still.

Sell the RX130's and get something stiff but built for touring, like the XTD, Cochise, etc. One boot solution... until you get hooked even more and get into ultralight and skimo.

Rx 130s feel squishy enough to me that they may as well be ;)

but yeah it depends on your AT goals. If you’re in it for summits and shit, a lighter boot is dope.

in any case, all I meant was if you have alpine boots already, get something that you’ll use only for touring rather than inbounds. That could be an xtd or a zero G or a ranger free.. just don’t use them as an every day boot if you want them to last for tours