Scarpa Tornado Alpine Touring Ski Boot - 2006 BCS

The only good thing about the boots was the comfort, but that also had its drawbacks as my foot felt like it never was secure enough and felt like I was floating inside too much which threw me off my balance more often than not (the ankle strap is a poor design, I prefer the four buckle design). The boots literally fell apart on me also. I bought them at the end of the 2005/2006 season, and at the start of the next season I started having problems. I consider myself a hard skier...meaning I charge the hard lines and demand a lot from my equipment, but I also only weight about 170 lbs! But the first good fall I had resulted in completely blowing out the ankle strap. When I fell the buckle of the ankle strap must have caught a part of the hardpack snow and yanked the buckle completely out of two layers of thin plastic on the outside of the boot. I blamed this on the poor design of the ankle strap as it seems to stick out way too far from the boot. Then I had to wait for more than a month and a half for the manufacturer (who is based in SLC) to get the boot back to the shop I bought it at. I called the shop many times and they in turn called Scarpa, but to no avail as they seemed to take their sweet time...obivously not important to Scarpa to have repeat customers. Anyhow, I finally got the boot and not a week later the canting screw seemed to just fall out and was lost, so I went back to the shop so they can go through the same mess all over again. They finally received the replacement, and not a week later that fell out of the boot also. Needless to say...I'll never buy another Scarpa product again, and I did the smart thing and after one year of disaster I bought a set of reliable Garmont's....something I should have done in the first place.

The new Pro model is even better than the "old" Tornado model. The shell seems stiffer and the boot feels more precise when skiing hard.

Only drawback to this boot is the lack of a rocker sole. I can get over that because I'm more likely to wear tennies and pack the boots during the hiking season. As for touring, once you unlock the pivot and a few buckles, these boots were just a flexible when compared side-by-side (one on each foot) with a pair of Megarides. You can make a stiff boot flex, but you can't make a flexible boot stiff - and a stiff boot rocks for the variable backcountry snow conditions here on the Front Range. So far, so good. I matched these with some Naxos - a binding so well pivoted you hardly even need an AT boot anyway. My fit was 1 finger between the heal and the shell with my toes just contacting the front - and I'd say that's about perfect. The thermomold thing fixes the rest. A few shops wanted to put me into a 1.5-2 finger kind of fit, but in the end I think that kind of fit is more appropriate for an alpine boot with no thermomold. Feels way too tight before thermomold, perfect after. My toes do contact the front with a little pressure when touring, but boots too loose, after packing out, can produce "hammering" of the front toe, which is much worse.

I bought these specifically for "working". I'm an ambassador at Killington, and ski mostly lift-served. These promised to drive my front side skis (stiff w/DIN sole) and be comfortable (walk switch and heat fit liner). Once the fitting was done by a local shop, I can put these on at 7:30AM and not touch them until I take them off at 5:00PM. Simply great. Delivered all that I wanted and perhaps more. Thanks.