Gear Review
Scarpa Terminator X Telemark Ski Boot
NTN = the future
By Dominick Layfield
Ranked #86 - Telemark Ski Boots
December 15, 2008
It's difficult to review this boot alone, since the NTN binding + boot are a combination that are difficult to separate. So keep that in mind. I bought a pair of last season's T-X's from Backcountry.com. Loved the convenience of the binding and the fit of the boot, but was never completely convinced by the way they skied: something didn't feel quite right. I tried numerous remedies (as suggested in Telemarktips forums), including heating bellows with hairdryer, drilling new hole for a new lower lean setting, and lowering the heelpiece. Over the summer, Scarpa ran a program to replace the lower shell of last year's boots with the newer dual-injection shell from this year's updated model that have a softer bellows flex and decreased forward lean. Finally got to try them out yesterday. Great success! The NTN system finally seems to be fulfil its potential. This time around everything feels right. The boots are stiff and light and comfortable. I love the idea of having one boot for both AT and Tele (although I've yet to test these as AT boots). My only criticism would be that the buckles (on 2007/8 model) are not micro-adjustable, which seems a little cheap. But I think Scarpa added micro-adjust buckles to this year's model. (It certainly looks that way in the photos, even if the description says otherwise.)
View Details: Scarpa Terminator X Telemark Ski Boot
Helpful Votes: 0 Yes
Change me.
1 Comments Last Reply: December 7, 2009 By: Dominick Layfield
A follow-up on my review: The replacement boots from Scarpa felt great and skied beautifully... for a while. Unfortunately, in the middle of a week-long backcountry trip in Canada, in very cold temperatures, the boots developed a crack in the toe that eventually propagated to the bellows. This caused me a bit of panic, but the boots remained skiable for another 4-5 days before they became noticeably floppy. So I was able to finish out the trip without any problem. On my return, Scarpa offered me a refund or a new pair of beta boots. I took the beta boots, because that was my only option I to keep skiing NTN. This was at the start of March '09, and pretty much everyone had sold out of the small number of NTN boots that they had stocked for the season. Anyway, the beta boots performed just like the previous boots -- i.e. beautifully -- but without the toe crack! Having said that, I've not yet had a chance to use them in the very cold (~0F, -20C) temperatures that were present when the previous pair cracked. Fingers crossed that Scarpa fixed the problem. Overall, I have to acknowledge that these boots have been a roller-coaster ride of missteps and unreliability. But Scarpa's customer support, at least, has been excellent. Oh, and BTW, the 09/10 season boots do have micro-adjustable buckles.
Helpful Votes: 3 Yes