Reporting from Outdoor Retailer trade show. One of the more interesting things I’ve seen in the past few days is Technica’s new line of tech compatible ski boots and ‘freeride’ skis.

Tecnica beef boots available at our favorite etailer.

While beef boots for touring are now somewhat of a yawner category (hot thing is again lightweight boots — the cycle never ends…), it is still interesting to see who will make a real alpine ski boot that doubles as a touring boot, rather than endlessly trying to convince hardcore riders that a touring boot can ski hard. (The latter makes for good blog fodder, but does get a bit repetitive.)

Now, for those of you who recall WildSnow history that’s so old it has to be translated from rock carvings, you’ll remember that Tecnica attempted to re-brand and slightly rework some Lowa AT boots a few years ago. I thought those were fairly nice and blogged about them, but I have to admit they were sleep inducing. After that, they went off my radar. But Tecnica wasn’t snuggling under the covers despite putting the rest of us to sleep with the Lowas. Instead, look what happened:

The new Tecnica boot line comprises a selection of pretty much full-on alpine boots they're calling 'Big Mountain,' and three models with walk/ski mode called 'Side Country.' The Big Mountain offerings are too alpine oriented to concern us here, but the 'Side Country' triad look super impressive. Beefy, nicely designed, and even some unique features. All have swap soles with tech fittings in the touring version. We will of course test the tech fittings at some point, Tecnica says they are making their own and they are super beefy. Click image to enlarge.