Would You Rather: Light Skis vs. Light Boots

Kara Williard: As someone who spent a decade as a bootfitter, and an advocate of the phrase, “you date your ski, but marry your boots,” (and several other cliché iterations of such phrases) which basically all hint at the fact that boots are infinitely more important than skis, I am going to go for a heavy boot on this one. Mainly, because I know the unique characteristics of my rigid foot and ankle, and I have found that a more supportive and stiffer boot definitely caters to a better, more pain-free experience while skiing (for me, personally). Unfortunately, for the most part, a supportive and stiff and stiff boot comes at the cost of more weight. I cannot imagine not not benefitting from the responsiveness and support of a stiff boot, and yet having to push a heavy ski around. It’s not really an option. Since the boot is the mechanism transferring energy to the ski, it seems a bit wild to think you’re even going to be able to drive a stiff ski in a light boot in any rewarding manner, so what’s the point? I think maybe if I had an easier foot to fit, my answer would be different. But even then, I am still such an advocate of a good fit, and for me this usually means relatively stiff flex (115-130), custom insoles, ZipFit Gara liners, ramp angle adjustment via heel lift, and the list goes on. What I am left with is a heavy boot, and the ability for me to ski pain-free for most of the day. Granted, I am also skiing about 80% inbounds, so if this were to shift, I might opt for the other way around, because I also know firsthand the disadvantages of lugging a heavy boot uphill. Recently I am, finally, feeling a bit more comfortable touring in a lighter boot, namely the Tecnica Zero G Tour Scout and the Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD 115, but if I am choosing the best scenario for a majority of my skiing, I still lean towards a heavier boot. That said, I haven’t skied many sub-1300 g skis, so I can’t really speak to what I might be setting myself up for, but at least I know I will be in a boot that feels supportive even if my lightweight ski is flailing and chattering across the mountain.

Dylan Wood: I have actually thought about this question a good bit. 1300 gram boots or skis are both very light, and I don’t think I’ve ever skied something so light since I’ve been an adult. I’d even consider an 1800 gram ski or boot on the lighter side, too. If you asked me this question a year ago, I probably would have answered that I’d prefer a lightweight boot and heavy ski without thinking much about it. Given that I had spent about three seasons in an Atomic Hawx Ultra 130 (around 1700 grams, which is light but not 1300 grams light), this is no coincidence. Although, after spending a lot of time in heavier boots like the Head Formula and Tecnica Mach1, it is getting much harder for me to answer this without thinking about it too much. And in the realm of skis, I can’t imagine that a 1300 gram ski would be very fun for the way I like to ski. I like to ski pretty fast on ungroomed terrain where I really appreciate the dampness and suspension of a 2100+ gram ski. So I am not very stoked on either answer. If I had to choose, I would probably go with the 1300 gram boot and 1800 gram ski. My thinking here is that chatter first comes through to your ski, and so having a heavier, relatively more damp ski can mute some of this input to your boots, which at 1300 grams, it would not be very damp at all. If we are going to throw bindings into the mix, I would want the binding to be the heaviest part of the setup, relative to the other gear. I don’t want to compromise on safety, and I definitely don’t want to ski on a pin binding inbounds. I can also think of plenty of 1800 gram skis I’d probably be pretty happy with, whereas I don’t think I’d be stoked on any 1300 gram ski for inbounds skiing. I’d probably opt for the Tecnica Zero G or something similar for boots, which I would be okay with. I think a more realistic adaptation of this question for inbounds skiing would be choosing equipment that is either 1700 grams or 2200 grams. In this case, I’d still go for the lighter boot and heavier ski. This would mean skiing something like a K2 Recon with a ski like the Sego Big Horn 106, which I would be very happy with. I suppose the other side of this would be skiing an Atomic Redster Club Sport with a ski like the Line Sick Day 94. In my mind, this setup makes a lot less sense as I think you’d be over-driving the Sick Day 94 into the ground and overflexing it with the Redster.

Paul Forward: I’ve thought about this kind of thing a lot and increasingly I see my ski, boot, and binding choices as more about my priorities and desired sensations for any given day and less about “the best” ski or boot for “how I ski”. It’s true that I’ve long preferred stiff, damp, heavy boots like the Head Raptor 140 or Lange RX 130/140 and heavy damp skis for charging around at high speeds in the mostly maritime snowpack around my home of Girdwood, Alaska. On the other hand, I also love skipping around on 1000gram boots and 1300g skis and enjoy the almost weightless feel on my feet (mostly on the up but also on the down!) and the fact that they coax me into being a more balanced and finesse oriented skier. When I’m just out skiing for fun (not guiding or reviewing) there’s no “best” combo for my overall skiing happiness and I’m delighted to have the option to bounce around on light stuff on some days and smash crud on heavy metal on others. For the question posed regarding choosing between a 1300g or 1800g boot or a ski vs skis of similar weight, I’d go the same route as everyone else above and stick with my Zero G Tour Pros and the heavier skis. If it was for touring only (mid-winter Alaska), my priority would be more on the dimensions of the skis (shooting for >115mm and at least 185cm long) than the weight but because of that, I’d rather have some flexibility with ski weight than boot weight. For inbounds, I’d still probably go with the ZGPT and something like the Majesty Havoc or, based on what I’ve heard from Luke et al, the Folsom Cash 106.

To me, the more interesting question here is where we sit right now relative to ski and boot design and weight. Let’s start with the premise that most of us accept here at Blister that heavier skis and boots generally yield better suspension and stability. In my experience, both skis and boots have made gains over the past 10-20 years in how capable they are relative to their weight. (This is coming from someone who skied various kinds of weird foam core and other lightweight touring skis in the late ’90s and early 2000s.) That said, I’m going to stick my neck a little and say that in the last few years I think boot weight/performance ratio has improved more than that of skis in this regard.

When it comes to stability and suspension in skis I still feel like there is a very direct relationship with weight. Allowing for some outliers, in general, I don’t think this has changed very much over the past 5-10 years. I’m not a ski engineer but I ride dozens of skis every year and it seems to me that we haven’t seen any huge changes in ski materials and construction in the last 10 years. Manufacturers have gotten incrementally better at blending carbon, fiberglass, different types of wood and titanal with small but real advances over time but the change has been gradual and linear.

Meanwhile, during that same time period, we’ve seen a more significant shift in boot materials. Eleven years ago I got my first pair of Dynafit TLT5 Performance boots and took them straight to a three-week glacier camping trip in the Tordrillo mountains where I was blown away by the kind of terrain I could ski on a boot that light (my pair was over 1300g once I added a few things to make them usable for me) that toured that well. As far I know that was the first widely available Grilamid boot on the market. Since then we’ve seen significant stepwise advances in boots materials and designs every year or two to the point where I can now choose between an incredibly capable 1300g ZGPT or a remarkable 1000g F1LT for ski touring. Meanwhile, I am getting almost the same performance out of my 1900g Tecnica Mach1 Concepts as I am out of my 2300+g Head Raptors, even with the same Intuition liners in both boots. In comparison, I think the stability and suspension performance gap between 1900g and 2300g skis is larger than that between these boots.

Are you going to see World Cup skiers racing GS on 1500g boots anytime soon? I doubt it, but I do think that 1800g (and lighter) boots like the Tecnica Cochise will continue to show up on the feet of more and more aggressive inbounds skiers with increasingly fewer compromises than those same grams would make if shaved off of inbounds skis.