Rock shoes with crampons. Performed exceptionally well on steep and thin ice. the raptor crampon doesn't shatter the ice. Just like having a pair of BD laser picks on your toes. Very agile boots.

what an amazing fruit boot! went up to vail and did some drytooling in the belfry and christened the boots on a route called svengali m9. the first time up the route it definitely took some getting use to. I own the new rambo 4's and they have a spur on them, but the rambo's spur is nothing compared to the raptors spur. I own lowa's mountain gtx boot in a size 10, so I ordered this boot in a size ten. the boot was way to small. I had to order up a 10.5 and that was the money baby! I know the rage now is to go bareback, but it is so cool hanging from your heel and being comfortable. Can't wait to get these boots on again. I did have to down size the sock. went from smartwool mountaineers sock to smartwool hiker.

so I've owned this boot since october, took the boot out two times to vail to climb in it and one of the plastic clasps that cinches your heel back in the boot broke. it was plastic failure. the following day I called lowa to get an RA # to return the boot and have it fixed. this was on the 12th of november. I gave them a little more than a week to call me and to no avail, so I picked up the phone and called them. at first they had a challenge finding my boot. when they finally found the boot out in the warehouse no one had even looked at it. they had to call me back. so I recieved a phone call from lowa and they told me that they had to send it to there cobbler to have the boot repaired. I asked for an eta of when i would get the boot back? she had answer because their cobbler is on the west coast in washington and lowa resides on the east coast. I told her the ice was getting ready to come in and was their an alternative. she said this is all they could do. today the boots showed up on my porch december 11th. almost a month to repair the boots. if the boot was broken because of abuse I would have no problem waiting, but when it is manufacturing issue they should have replaced it with new boots. Be leary of buying lowa boots. the weak link on this boot is the plastic buckle that cinches your heel back.

I tested these boots during the Ouray Ice Festival and was incredibly impressed. Despite their light weight (or maybe because of it) they climbed ice very well. I found myself placing my crampons much more than actually swinging them. There is no comparison with regular boots when it comes to mixed climbing. The Ice Comps clearly win the battle. The built-in gaiters did a good job of keeping the snow out, and the Gore-Tex lining kept my foot dry when I stepped through the ice and into the river. These boots were a little snug on my very wide, high-volume feet, but they still did the job OK. They also run about a half size tighter than the regular Lowa ice climbing boots. My suggestion is to remove the heel spur unless you climb M10 or harder. It can be done with an allen wrench in about a minute. You have to approach in a different pair of boots, which is a pain, meaning these would be a very poor choice for the mountains. Ice and mixed cragging only.