It is worth taking time to get a boot to fit; not being overly fixed on super sale prices or certain brands.  Manufacturers are now producing shells, not just liners, that can be moulded.  Getting a footbed also a worthwhile upgrade.  It’s worth having a read up on different models to get an idea of what might suit your foot shape.

There are also a lot more boots drawing in tech and innovations from touring and back country.  Salamon QST and Nordica Strider both have hike mode / soles,  40+degree range of movement when walking, walk  the higher end models even come with dynafit pin inserts.  Just to illustrate fit both of these can be customised to a wider forefoot fit but the Nordica is more suited to high instep.  There are other manufactures doing similar product.

If you go down the touring boot route then it’s making sure everything else is compatible / suited to the type of skiing your going to be doing.

My current boots are the first I’ve had full fitting done on – bought from Anything Technical in Kendal.  Moulded the inners and the shells plus a custom footbed.  Definitely the best fitting boots I’ve ever had.  If you have the boots already Alan Baxter is the best bet for a fitting.  Otherwise the shops mentioned above should be able to fit the boot when you buy it.  Boots before I got from Braemar mountain sports who also fitted them, although that was a fit, ski, comeback and adjust a bit.

Looking at the current snow levels it’s looking promising for another Mayday finish for the lift served in Scotland.  Plenty of time and get them used.

Some words of cautiion about boot fitting.

If you have the ankle of the boot done up tight on a touring boot when you thermo-from/mould it you’ll find that in walk mode you’ll be pushing your skis froward with your toes not your ankle. Reheating won’t restore the flexibility and volume to the inner so if they get it wrong you’ve scrapped a pair of inners and no they won’t give you your money back, they’ll want to sell you a new set of inners.

One local shop sells many people boots too small on the basis that they’l fit better after moulding. The won’t. A boot should be a snug fit before moulding but not tight.

In the group of ski mountaineers I ski with there are more and more who only have the boot moulded if it isn’t comfortable after half a dozen days skiing or more.

Footbeds are another matter, it’s pretty obvious from the outset if your foot isn’t well supported or if there’s too much /too little volume in the boot relative to length so if the boot doesn’t feel right have a footbed moulded to your foot and buy some different thicknesses of volume adjusters to fine tune.

If a boot feels fine the first day on the pistes it’s probably been fitted too loose. My piste boots feel good now, after a season of skiing, and will be fine for many years. Initially I had to undo the straps on every lift and take them off now and then. After a couple of days they stayed on and now I just release the straps now and then. If I’d bought the next size up I’d have sloppy boots now.

Again, thanks for all the advice. Plenty to think about I reckon. Will be going to get some boots probably in the next week to ten days so will report back on how I get on.

The standard footbeds, even in expensive boots, are appalling quality – about 5 pence worth of cardboard with some thin fabric glued on top.

Well, I went shoe shopping at the weekend!

I emailed Alain Baxter a couple of times, but after his first response he didn’t get back to me, so I went with a friend’s advice and headed into Glasgow to check out the boot range in ‘Blue’ at the Tiso Outdoor Experience. The chap there was very helpful and patiently took the measurements of my apparently rather funky shaped feet. I well remember years ago, my diabetic consultant looking at my feet and asking if they’d ‘always’ been that shape. 🙁

Tried on a few pair of boots at Tiso, and although the difference between those and the hire boots I’ve used before was like night and day, they still just weren’t quite right. So we thanked the guy and headed down to Ellis Brigham at the Braehead centre. The young chap here (Ruairidh), was absolutely brilliant. He filled out a wee questionnaire, got my skiing background and aspirations…..all day comfort, not bothered about performance, then we got down to the nitty-gritty.

In the end we were working between wide fit 28.5 boots and normal fit 29.5. The stumbling points were my banana shaped feet, where my left is also significantly wider than my right and my fat calves…cause I’m a fairly chunky lad. Finally settled on a pair of 29.5 Nordica ‘Speedmachine 100’ boots, oooh the irony of that ‘speedmachine’ bit, like that’s ever going to happen! With the upper straps adjusted out to their widest setting, the right foot fit as comfortably as my old snowboarding boots. What a revelation! The left boot still wasn’t quite right because of pressure on the outside of my left foot, but the guy took the boot away and heat treated a section of the boot then used some sort of vacuum pump to pull the heated part of the shell out. Then he heat treated the inner sock and boom, the fit was as good on the left as it was on the right.

All in, we were probably there for around 3 hours and were treated brilliantly. I’m still gobsmacked that ski boots can be comfortable, I honestly assumed they were just awful to wear and that you just had to suck it up. Very pleased with my new boots, can’t wait to try them on a slope, oh, and they’ve even got ‘go fasta’ red bits!

Beagy 🙂

Sounds like excellent service!