New BD liner is beautiful. Click to enlarge.
Trussed with an inverted Bod Harness, dot three Camalot stuffed up each nostril. I’m told that’s the punishment for lazy bloggers. Best to avoid such discomfort, so I’ll keep getting the ski boot info out to the wild. Today, Black Diamond.
For 2012/13, Black Diamond’s overlap construction AT boots in their “Alpine Tour” series retain the same names. Quadrant, Prime, Slant and Swift sport different colors and an improved power strap. More importantly the boots yield completely reworked AT liners that in the words of one BD booster “actually make these into new boot models — with the same names.” The Freeride boots (Factor 130 & 110, Shiva) remain the same, with a few small tweaks to liners.
As most WildSnow readers know, we don’t take stock ski boot liners very seriously (poor things). We think it’s impossible to make one liner that’ll fit most people near perfect out of the box — or in many cases, even after thermo molding. (By “fit” we mean truly fit for performance skiing, not just feel good on the carpet.)
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder 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. He published his memoir, Avalanche Dreams: A Memoir of Skiing, Climbing, and Life in 2024.
