Just when the snow started flying in the PNW this fall, a pair of Scarpa’s new Freedom boots showed up at my door. With pow season around the corner, burly backcountry boots are the ticket for the kind of riding I like to do. (Note: Freedom comes in two models. SL is the significantly lighter weight version with Pebax and carbon construction, regular Freedom does not have a thermo liner and is molded from PU plastic instead of Pebax. They rate SL as a 120 flex and regular Freedom at 110, we suspect they’re both virtually the same stiffness, depending on how the liner fits you and the boot is buckled.)
Scarpa's Freedom AT boot. Note the plastic "seal" on the front tech fittings. All fittings manufactured by Dynafit now are sold with it.
I’ve wrung out the Freedom on a few recent trips. They are an interesting boot — definitely a strong evolution on the beefier side of the AT boot spectrum. Scarpa has taken a stiff overlap boot and attempted to make it walk as well as possible at reasonable weight (claimed at 63 ounces per single of size 27, so 4 pounds per boot, verified weight coming as soon as scale is working.). Verdict: they work. This in comparison to many of the stiffer AT boots out there that attempt to use tongue (cabrio) type shell construction and make it stiffer — with varying degrees of success in both how such boots walk and how they ski.
Testing the boots on Mt. Baker, after Halloween. The stiffness proved to be ideal when packing a bit of extra weight, though at 300 pounds of skier mass the claimed 120 flex felt more like 95. Photo Jason Davis.
Scarpa Freedom comes with a boot board in the shell, probably the lightest AT boot out there with this feature. The boot board is made out of closed cell foam rather than hard plastic like many, possibly to save weight and add warmth. Boot boards are one of the best features you can have for tuning fit. Make it thicker, grind it down thinner, throw it away -- your choice.
Scarpa Freedom SL has 24 degrees of motion in walk mode. In real life, with a liner and foot inside, it's slightly less, closer to 20, with lots of resistance at the far ends of the range but still very walkable.
Walk mode is a new design. It is built for durability and to reduce play.
The sole is removable. The AT version features tech fittings and a burly Vibram sole.
Intuition makes the liners for all of Scarpa's boots. Freedom liners are a custom design, similar to many alpine boots.
It’s known within the industry that Scarpa Freedom has knocked it out of the park in terms of sales. As far as I can tell by skiing the boot as well as examining it, I’m not surprised. In coming weeks I’ll give this boot more of a test and eventually a real review. Meanwhile, if you’re shopping and have a line on your list for “new stiffer AT boot,” perhaps you can fill that line.
Shop for Scarpa Freedom ski mountaineering boot.
Louie Dawson earned his Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University in 2014. When he’s not skiing Mount Baker or somewhere equally as snowy, he’s thinking about new products to make ski mountaineering more fun and safe.
