Salomon

MTN Lab Ski Boot - Men's

After skinning a few thousand vertical feet, wallowing up a powder-filled couloir, or navigating a wind-scoured ridge, it's reassuring to know that your boots will deliver the power and security necessary to actually ski your line well. And while there are plenty of AT boots out there that will feel more like a pair of hiking boots during the ascent, it's still relatively tough to find a pair of AT boots that will deliver the stiffness that hard-charging skiers need when skiing aggressively in steep terrain, making sweeping turns down wind-buffed bowls, or slashing powder turns in the trees on a storm day. Designed with a 120 flex, impressive 47-degree cuff rotation, and a weight well below that what you'd expect from a stiff AT boot, the Salomon MTN Lab is quickly earning the reputation as a game changer due to its ability to travel efficiently in the backcountry and crush big descents in challenging conditions.

As touring boots have become increasingly more specialized the last few seasons, the industry seems to be asking the average backcountry skier to either sacrifice uphill efficiency for power on the descent (or vice versa) or invest in a quiver of boots to match the different backcountry objectives and conditions they'll encounter throughout a season. If having a closet full of AT boots doesn't necessarily fit in your shoestring budget to ski upwards of 100 days a year, then consider the MTN Lab your quiver-of-one backountry boot. Its commanding flex and downhill-focused design puts it at the top of Salomon's MTN line, but its generous 47-degree walk mode, rockered sole, and tech inserts make it a more efficient backcountry tool than any of its predecessors from Salomon's Quest BC line. If all the uphill capabilities of the MTN Lab sound great, but the boot's downhill prowess sounds overkill for the kind of skiing that you do, then the MTN Explore might be the better option from Salomon's MTN line. Simply put, the MTN Explore has a more approachable 110 flex, more cuff rotation in walk mode (67 degrees), and it weighs about four ounces less per boot, making it a solid choice for the more ascent-oriented backcountry skier.

Salomon's been building backcountry boots for quite a few years now, but it's failed to gain serious traction among the touring community since its previous backcountry boots were basically stripped-down versions of alpine boots with a little less plastic in the shell and cuff, a slightly lighter liner, and a walk mode with a few degrees of cuff rotation. Instead of just rehashing one of its old designs, Salomon built the MTN Lab from the ground up and brought Salomon Freeski team members and accomplished backcountry skiers Greg Hill and Chris Rubens to the table to help design a boot that would perform in the kind of demanding backcountry zones Hill and Rubens operate in—Rogers Pass, Chilean Andes, and the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. At first glance, it's obvious that the MTN Lab is new territory for Salomon. The boot's lugged and rockered sole, tech fittings, and waterproof textile panel are all features that you wouldn't have been able to find on Salomon's Quest Max 120 BC, and the MTN Lab's generous 47-degree walk mode is almost 10 degrees more than what you could find on any boot from the Quest BC line. Weighing 3lb 7oz (3102 grams) per boot, the MTN Lab is comparable to other descent-oriented AT boots on the market in terms of weight. Part of what keeps the MTN Lab's weight down is the boot's Grilamid shell, which is quickly becoming the industry standard among high-end alpine touring boots. Not only is Grilamid lighter than the polyurethane used to mold traditional alpine boots, but it's also impressively stiff and strong, so less material is required to give the shell the stiff and responsive feel of an alpine boot. Since Salomon was able to mold the shell with less material, the thinner Grilamid shell weighs about the same as those lightweight Pebax noodle boots your Lycra-wearing touring partner skis in.

In terms of fit, Salomon really stuck to its goal to develop a boot that skied hard and traveled efficiently in the backcountry. The low-volume 98mm chassis is identical to Salomon's X-Max 130 alpine boot to give the boot that snug fit required to actually ski well. Skiers that require a wider last may want to consider a boot with a more high-volume fit. The SensiFit 3D liner bolsters the boot's snug-fitting feel with a heat-moldable design that conforms to the shape of your foot. And while the addition of a heat-moldable liner may not be anything revolutionary, it does add that extra bit of performance and comfort skiers have come to expect from a boot. Realizing there's still a large population of skiers out there that are skeptical of the downhill capabilities of any boot with a walk mode, Salomon built the MTN Lab with a rigid and lightweight carbon spine and oversized 24mm pivot connection for a solid and secure link between the shell and cuff to give the MTN Lab that bolted-together feel of a traditional alpine boot. The metal-on-metal Surelock mechanism reinforces the boot's stiff nature by eliminating play between the shell and cuff once locked into ski mode. The Sensifit shell design saves weight by reducing the amount of material used throughout the shell, but it is able to maintain stiffness through the ridged reinforcements that run diagonally down the sides of each boot for added strength and material where it matters most. The most noticeable feature of the shell is the waterproof textile panel along the top of the boot—the jury's still out on the durability of this panel, but it does keep the overall weight of the boot down, which is never a bad thing.

Reducing the amount of buckles on a boot is one of the easiest ways to shave weight from a boot. If you've been paying attention to the latest boot trends, then you've probably noticed that the industry has been experimenting with some pretty far-out buckle systems lately—ratcheting dial shell closures and wired one-buckle systems that feed into the walk mode are quickly replacing the four-buckle systems that have basically been the industry standard among stiff AT and telemark offerings for the last decade. Salomon, on the other hand, decided to work smarter instead of harder and stuck with a simple and streamlined two-buckle design with cam-locking power strap that ensures a locked-down fit that won't wear out like traditional hook-and-loop power straps. The layout of the buckles is designed to save time during transitions by placing the top buckle and walk mode latch close enough together that both can be engaged or disengaged with the same sweeping motion as you get ready ski. The addition of tech inserts allows you to use the MTN Lab with the array of tech bindings available on the market today, and the aggressively lugged Contragrip sole is ready to chew up knife-edge ridges and motor up steep bootpacks in chalky couloirs.