(This post sponsored by our publishing partner Cripple Creek Backcountry. We hear they are into tongue swapping.)
Left to right. Original Spectre tongue makes an effort at walking freedom, with bellows hinge, but still obstructs natural touring stride. Sportiva two piece ‘Double Power’ tongue solves the problem, installed on Spectre. Install hints: Tongue mount can be loosened just enough to pop tongues in and out, but in doing so you might drop a T-nut from the inside. If that happens stick the T-nut up with a square of duct tape so it’s easy to re-insert screw.
Sorry kids, this isn’t a kissing howto. You can find that over at Cosmo. Meanwhile, La Sportiva’s Double Power Tongue is one of the best ski touring boot innovations in years (see Synchro review for more details). This cultural event is not quite on the level of when cavemen went from bare feet to sandal, but close. In case you’ve been out of touch, perhaps living in a crevasse on the Kahiltna, the idea is simple. Read on.
Regular “tongue” style boot shells have trouble allowing adequately free forward motion in touring mode, due to the shell tongue obstructing forward movement of your shin. Providing some sort of hinge in the tongue is the usual solution, but doing so compromises downhill stiffness. Sportiva’s two piece tongue is easy hinged for touring (though we’d like it to be totally free hinged) , and stiffens up when you buckle down by virtue of a separate smaller-stiffer tongue the keys into the underlying full tongue. (Other companies have tried this sort of thing over the years, but in our opinion never this effectively). Sportiva’s solution works, albeit you need take care down to align the two tongues when buckling. You get used to it, and it’s worth it.
Secret sauce, the darker part matches up with the orange cutout, locking together when the boot is buckled. Getting the parts to mate during buckling is easy, a bit tougher configuring for walking as a buckle that’s too tight will lock the parts together.
Of course you mod-happy readers of WildSnow.com have already asked: “Swap this to the earlier Spectre models?” Sure. And more.
Orange on yellow? Hey, it’s La Sportiva, need we say more?
For grins, I swapped a Sportiva tongue to a Scott Cosmos 3, am pleased with the results. Problem: the tongue is sold WITHOUT the hing-holder bracket the screws go through. That part might be available as well, I got mine from an old pair of original Spectres we have here for parts.
Sportiva bracket on Scott Cosmos. The holes nearly line up, I egged them out using a roto-cut bit on rotary grinder.
This type of project requires three hands, if necessary back the T-nuts with a square of tape so they don’t fall into the boot shell as you attempt to thread screws.
Good result.
Some of the info you need for ordering, probably through a dealer. Sportiva ITEM NUMBER is 49H in their catalog.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
