Salomon

Quest Pro 100 W Ski Boot - Women's

Finding an alpine boot with a ski/hike switch these days is about as difficult as breathing, but Salomon's Quest Pro 100 W Women's Ski Boot is one of the best. Salomon pretty much kicked off the ski/hike with the original Quest, and every year the offerings just keep getting better. The Quest Pro 100 W is supported by the same basic ideology as the OG Quest—make a backcountry-capable touring boot that doesn't sacrifice any of the hard-charging qualities of a pure in-bounds ripper—but almost everything else has been changed, making the Quest Pro lighter, stronger, and more rippable than most comparable boots.

The foundation of the Quest Pro 100 W is the 360 Custom Shell, an innovation that's been cribbed from Salomon's in-bounds boots. Basically, the shell is made from a heat-moldable material that lets it conform to your foot in the same way as the My CustomFit 3D Pro liner—heat it up, put it on, buckle it down, let it cool, and you have a fully custom boot that hugs your ankles, cradles your toes, and won't slip, pinch, or give you blisters on the way up. The Quest also employs Salomon's Articulated Sensifit design, which sports a more flexible panel over the instep to allow for pain-free donning and doffing of your boots.

So the fit's killer, but can the Quest Pro actually ski and climb? Yeah, a little bit. The shell and the cuff are joined via Salomon's 24mm oversized pivot, which forms a rock-solid connection that transfers energy efficiently into your edges without allowing any lateral slop, and the Hike & Ride technology provides a bombproof fore/aft connection so you won't have any frontwards or backwards slippage when you're trying to milk the solid 110 flex for all it's worth. In hike mode, the Quest has a surprising amount of cuff rotation, along with a grippy rubber sole and waterproof gusset under the forefoot overlap, so you won't slip on ridgeline rocks or have to deal with soggy and frozen feet.