Boot Test's Top Brands & Brand News
This is not to say that the other 12 brands weren’t right in the hunt—they were! Keep in mind that the winners of a boot test like ours are really you, the passionate skiers who are looking for your best next boot, because all of the boots that make the cut for our reviews are here for a reason—that they’re just right for someone. Our job is to describe who that somebody is and hopefully help make a positive difference in a skier’s season.
This year Atomic entered brand new narrow Hawx Ultra and wide Hawx Magna and also submitted their cool, new Professional Series models for custom foam-injection bench testing.
Dalbello rolled to our test with an entire stable of new models spanning four-buckle overlap and cabrio shell architectures in narrow, mediums and wides with fixed cuffs, walk modes and tech-compatible models in the mix.
DaleBoot’s fully custom VFF got a major makeover and its all-new The Gambit made an impressive debut.
Fischer won the most effective entry per model ratio award with it’s single Backcountry category entry for men in the Transalp Pro and women with the Transalp Tour W—yes, that means they kicked ass.
Full Tilt’s classic cabrios got tester-approved updates in the First Chair 120 and Soul Sister 100.
Head’s new Formula (medium) and Formula RS (narrow) all-mountain boots for men and women fit and skied better than any Head boot ever before in that category.
K2 brought the beefier BFC for women and men (they’re stiffer) to bask in wide ride glory again and successfully rejiggered stiffnesses for their narrow women’s Anthem boots.
Lange finally entered the true Backcountry boot market and did so in dominant fashion at our test and introduced a new patented liner tongue in their RX line entries that was way more exciting than we’d expected.
Nordica stripped and ripped a few models of its perennial comfortable-performance benchmark Speedmachine range to give them a more performance-based fit map, calling them Speedmachine 3.
Rossignol’s walk-enabled wide and wider Alltrack and Track got rebuilt for this season with a stronger flex to suit the stronger men that will no-doubt gravitate there.
Roxa adds a new member to its popular R3 three-piece cabrio and tech-compatible clan in the R3 Freetour T.I. IR as well a new 102mm overlap shell contender for men and women in the R/Fit Pro series.
Salomon’s medium width S/Pro returns this year for men and women with a completely revised liner with a neoprene toebox that testers loved.
Scarpa’s Maestrale models and the women’s Gea got a stronger shell design this year and incorporated plant-based plastics Grilamid Bio and Pebax Rnew into more models.
Scott’s revised Cosmos and Celeste line-up offered lighter, stiffer options than before with improved touring range of motion and a new Freeguide Carbon that impressed for its skiing skills but testers really dug its Boa closure liner.
Tecnica’s Mach1 LV boots got elevated to T-Drive status this year, following on the MV’s update last season, and the Cochise is an all-new boot with a trick new hike mode apparatus with a slick locking feature.
