Just a quick encore. Earlier this year, Sharon Bader did a thorough Scarpa Gea review. I join her in applauding this boot. Scarpa Gea is sweeter than Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte.
Smiling in my Gea backcountry ski boots on a sunny Colorado morning.
WildSnow Girl, Lisa Dawson, is the luckiest girl in the world. Also known as Mrs. WildSnow.com, she tests whatever gear she wants. She gives the WildSnow family of websites the feminine voice.
Intuition liner 2.0 is based on the Luxury Liner, but uses even more advanced materials.
It is not surprising that the Intuition 2.0 liner looks like Intuition’s other tongue liners (Luxury and Freeride liners) as they are based on the same panel construction design. I’ve already written quite a bit about Intuition’s other liners in a previous Wildsnow article so please reference that for more gushing praise.
The key difference in the Intuition 2.0 liner is the use in strategic locations a 4mm layer of a new Intuition foam. Intuition is calling this new foam “Enact PE.” Enact PE can be distinguished from the very soft “Flexalon” foam used only in the Intuition Pro-tour liner, which was used in strategic spots in the Pro Tour liner to encourage tourability and walking/striding comfort for backcountry skiing. Enact PE is also differentiated from the standard Ultralon Intuition foam used in its other liners (including the wrap and tongue liners) by a change in thermoforming characteristics.
Guest blogger Lee Lau is an avid skier and outdoorsman embarking on many adventures with his loving, and sometimes concerned wife, Sharon. He has over 15 years of experience skiing, ski-touring and dabbles in mountaineering. In the “off-season” he is occasionally found working in his day job as an intellectual property lawyer when he is not mountain biking. As a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, Lee’s playground extends mainly to Western Canada, including South West B.C. and the Selkirks.
Shop for Garmont ski boots here.
Mental problems can take many forms for backcountry and slackcountry skiers. Powder madness. Peak fever. Going postal at work from looking at powder trip reports while cubified. Insanity from 36 hour drives or 12:00 am starts. Thus, I wasn’t surprised when Garmont named their flagship beef boot “Delirium.” Check out our firstlook unboxing of the delirious Red Bombshell.
Garmont Delirium backcountry skiing boot, actually, better term would be sidecountry boot.
With a manufacturer claimed flex rating of 130, tall cuff, interchangeable sole blocks and more, this shoe is indeed crazy. One has to guess that Garmont took note of the beef boot craze and decided to simply make the proverbial alpine boot with a touring sole. Not faux, really. So they did.
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.
Shop for Garmont ski boots here.
Boot Reviews
I have been using Garmont Radiums since they came out, and still love them. While they aren’t the stiffest boots out there, they are still fairly beefy. They have a really nice flex that is hard to find in an AT boot, and tour great as well. These days I use other boots in my quiver for big tours and ski mountaineering, and the Radiums for driving big skis or on days when I don’t mind a bit of extra weight and want to have fun skiing in a no-compromise alpine style.
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.
Sharon Bader
Boot Reviews
Having ski toured for twenty years I know the most important thing in your gear inventory is your boots, closely followed by a flashy jacket. Even when I was a telemark skier I’d buy the stiffest boot I could afford. Forget those three buckled leather and lace jobs — I was STOKED when Scarpa came out with the plastic T2! OMG Control! Since then I’ve upped my ante when it comes to control by switching to alpine touring and the superior performance of AT gear. Thus, when it came time for an AT ski boot upgrade I was excited that Scarpa has now come out with a lighter, stiffer four buckle boot that fits my feet: The Gea.
Beyond our regular guest bloggers who have their own profiles, some of our one-timers end up being categorized under this generic profile. Once they do a few posts, we build a category. In any case, we sure appreciate ALL the WildSnow guest bloggers!
Shop for Garmont ski boots here.
My view on ultralight touring boots is that they need to be fast on the uphill, and simply get me through the downhills. Garmont Masterlights behaved that way — they definitely pulled through for me. Indeed, what better way to test a race oriented lightweight shoe then, well, race it? So yeah, along with a few training sessions I tested these guys and myself in what many are calling the toughest ski mountaineering race yet held in North America: 12,000+ vert, 26 miles, gnarly downhill sections. Humbling, to say the least. More info here, race photos by Jeremy Swanson Photography.
Myself and Masterlites descending Congo Road, Power of Four ski mountaineering race. Beyond speeding down Highland Bowl or the final section of steep bump sking on Aspen Mountain, Congo was a downhill crux. Some called it desperate, still others were never seen again after this section and thus their opinion was never known.
Weighing in at only 2.4 pounds, the Masterlights (size 28, BSL 314, tech bindings only) feel like sneakers on my feet. This made me smile thinking of how I would be able to run up the course of the “4-skin” as the race has already become known. I had my doubts about the downhill though. I have a downhill racing background. This means that the stiffer the boot the better. While most certainly the boot for rando racing, Masterlights don’t exactly fall into the “stiffest” category (note, the PU version is a bit stiffer and could be something to look at). I would have to make it work.
WildSnow.com guest blogger Anton Sponar spends winters enjoying the Aspen area of Colorado, while summers are taken up with slave labor doing snowcat powder guiding at Ski Arpa in Chile. If Anton didn’t ski every month and nearly every week of the year, skiing would cease to exist as we know it.
