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What we've been reminded over the past couple years is that skiing sure is fun! Nothing like a pandemic-driven lockdown of society to make you re-appreciate sliding down a snow-covered hill, right? Okay, so everybody else had the same idea and the mountain commutes and lift lines have gotten a little crazy. While the mask-over-nose goggle fogging phenomenon may be over there's a new challenge: keeping one's cool in the midst of the like-minded crowds. It's been proven that warm and comfy boots will extend one's patience horizon and help avoid embarrassing on-hill conniption fits. An ABB bootfitter near you can help with that...

While the true Backcountry boot is an out-of-bounds animal—built for ascending with light weight, maximum touring range of motion, tech binding compatibility and a fully rockered and aggressively lugged outsole for walking and scrambling as needed—we favor Backcountry boots that trend toward a solid, dependable descent, regardless of snow conditions. This season we got a small batch of boots in the skin track in the Pacific Northwest and found a few that toured with the best but skied stronger than the rest.

As a type of ski boot, the modern Freeride boot attempts to combine the downhill performance of an All-Mountain boot with the lighter weight and touring range of motion of the Backcountry boot. While this was rarely achieved a few years ago, the current crop of Freeride boots we've tested do everything the on-area, off-area adventure skier wants, without many compromises. Most of the boots in the Freeride group are utilizing GripWalk soles to enhance the boots' walkability and most also incorporate metal-to-metal cuff release mechanisms to maximize energy transmission during descents. Pin-style (aka "Low Tech," or just "Tech") binding compatibility is standard across this category, though the Freeride boot can be used in a traditional Alpine binding, so long as it's GripWalk compatible.

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 Walk, 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 (and who also are good skiers and have been testing boots for many years). We also invite ski industry professionals like coaches, instructors, patrollers, rental technicians and resort administrative staff to test boots.

This year's ABB Boot Test was accomplished with the help of an agile, experienced team of veteran boot testers who were willing to don masks and spread out in physically-distanced fashion in our mountain-top test center at Mt. Bachelor to stuff their feet into 65 brand new boot models of all varieties. Without brand liaisons in attendance this season and without the typical after-testing social activities, this was an all-business sort of affair but that didn't dissuade these dedicated gear junkies from showing up. We utilized our Bend, Oregon home team to large extent but we had travel-in testers from Colorado, New Mexico and California bolstering our ranks.