Shop for Cosmos ski boots here.
According to an inside source, Garmont has been dissolved within the US to a large degree. The only Garmont products we will see stateside will be hiking boots and crampon compatible high alpine boots. Rebranded, their flagship AT boot is perhaps a Cosmos no more. But it does have a badge that says Cosmos. More soon on that. And what about those tech fittings that became so controversial? Read on, boys and girls.
The first day of the OR Show kicked off today in Solitude at the outdoor gear demo. It’s safe to say this is again the year of the boot!
Atomic, Fischer, K2, Scarpa, Dynafit, LaSportiva, Black Diamond, Tecnica and Scott all have tech compatible boots for 13/14. I’m probably missing a brand, sorry about that, whomever — Crispi perhaps, or Dalbello?
They're calling this another version of a tech fitting. To us it simply appears they drilled out or otherwise modded their stock ones so they perform better (note milled metal at edge of outer lip). The need for a better radius on the lip was perhaps one of the problems, but if I recall correctly the depth was also off and caused some play. If the modded version works that will be good news. Perhaps we'll get to test them. Click to enlarge.
Another view of the modded tech fitting. Some of our readers were able to homebrew this. Now you guys are validated!
Modded tech fitting, a power strap and some Scott graphics, otherwise a Cosmos. If the fittings work now, that'll be wonderful since these really are performance boots that combine stiff and light in an effective way.
Brief boot review:
I was able to ski these boots for one day at Snowbird on hard surfaces under bluebird skies with the a temperature of 20 degrees in the morning subsequently warming up to 40 degrees in the afternoon. I was paired up with a Kastle BMX 108 in a 188 length.
For the morning I was in the Pebax version with Intuition liner and switched over to the PU version in the afternoon. The majority of our runs were down Snowbird’s Mineral Basin in hard-charging style(following Davenport nonetheless). I had the boots buckled to the max on my forefoot and very close to that on the upper buckles. I would definitely say these boots are aimed at your slackcountry/resort charger that puts in hikes every now and then. That being said, I did not tour in them or hike in them at any point throughout the day. At lunch I switched over to the PU version, while keeping my original Intution liner from the morning boot. Immediately I noted that it felt roomier as did several others who swapped at lunch. I believe it was the liner packing and molding but can’t truly be sure.
Shop for Cosmos ski boots here.
Joseph Risi was raised on pasta and meatballs in the “backwoods” of Long Island before seeking higher education in the mountains of Vermont. Always looking for adventure, building treehouses, working too many odd jobs around the world he now lives in the Aspen area of Colorado.
