America's Best Bootfitters, Period.

We’ve been running our annual boot test at Mt. Bachelor for over 25-years for one simple reason—it has the best Spring snow coverage and ongoing winter-temperature testing conditions anywhere in the USA, and in early- to mid-April we can count on full operating hours and access to real terrain, 360-degrees around the whole mountain. We’ve tried moving the test elsewhere in the Rockies, the Wasatch and even to the east coast and we invariably find ourselves coming back to Mt. Bachelor.

Considering all your boot choices can seem a bit of a blur, but our advanced boot searching algorithm lets you narrow the field of options. Start your search by selecting Reviews/Boot Reviews from the menu above, then select your FILTER parameters and hit UPDATE RESULTS. Happy hunting, and remember that this is just a start—finalize your search by trying on the boots that make your short list at an America's Best Bootfitters member shop! Read on….

We start the boot test process in early winter by working with our brand partners to determine which boots will be tested in each of five categories: Frontside, All-Mountain Traditional, All-Mountain Access, All-Mountain Freeride and Backcountry. Virtually every boot brand participates in our boot test as it remains the only one like it, worldwide. Our test team is comprised of a core group of Masterfit University instructors, MFU trained bootfitters and boot sellers who know boots inside and out.

While there are always surprises to be had at our boot test—certain new boots that delight our testers from brands they may be less familiar with, or brands that may surge forward with new boot designs or compelling features—there remains a regular group of brands that we seem to always end up with at the top of our test categories. While they may trade positions on the podium the same way Formula 1 teams like Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes do...

Which brands topped our test?

The first step in your ultimate boot search is to know thyself! How and where do you ski? Are you groomer-centric or an off-piste munk junkie? Are you a human-powered ascent machine or a burger-loving fan of the chairlift and apres cocktails? Answers to these questions will guide you toward one of our five Boot Test Categories: Frontside, All-Mountain Traditional, All-Mountain Access, All-Mountain Freeride and Backcountry. Then your search can be fine-tuned by matching your foot shape to a boot's Last Width and Flex Index.

The annual boot test is a huge team effort, from our brand partners’ help in getting us the boots we test, to our fantastic sponsors who help set the stage for a high-performance, well-oiled week. Red Bull Spect, Flylow, Le Bent, BlackStrap, Level, Pret and Pistil Designs provided pieces from their premier lines to make our job more clear, drier, warmer, more fun and definitely made us way cooler than we would’ve been without them! Best of all, this was gear we all choose to use already—here’s to no learning curve and instant gratification!