Geargals

Bite the bullet and grab the Divas for $678.95 at backcountry.com. They’re worth the money and I need the commission, so go on, click here!

It’s summer! What better time for a ski boot review? Okay, so I’m a little behind on my gear review pile. But Scarpa said they won’t be making changes to the boot so this review still applies to next year’s Diva. So in a way, I got to test a prototype!

This boot was tested by two, count ‘em, TWO Geargals. One of whom (me) does the writing, and the other provides thoughtful, technical appraisals such as “I love them! They’re white, and they’re called Divas!” Hmm. Guess I’m on my own on this one.

They are pretty and have a cute name, but there are other reasons to love this boot. They’re light. They’re Dynafit compatible. They have Intuition moldable liners (heaven!). They’re nicely stiff, and even if they’re not stiff enough, they come with an extra super mega-stiff tongue that can be swapped out with the hinged, flexible touring tongue. Scarpa told me “it’s like getting two boots in one!” which I’ll just have to take their word for because not only am I a touring skier, I’m a lazy touring skier who doesn’t like to carry extra things and therefore never lugged the extra tongues up any mountains to test them out. I also didn’t want to sit in the snow trying to swap out ski boot tongues, so I never even tried to see how easy or difficult it was to do. Bad tester! I’m, er, sure they’re really nice tongues though.

So, I only skied the Divas with the flexible touring tongue, but even so, the boot was plenty stiff for me, a welcome relief after trying other mushy touring boots. The micro-adjustable four buckles made for a snug, custom fit, though with the genius instep strap, the fourth buckle almost seems superfluous. That instep strap is probably the best idea ever (except for all of the other “best ideas ever” I’ve mentioned in this blog) because it completely eliminates heel lift and lateral slop. It’s awesome! Not in the classic sense of awesome as in “inspiring awe” but awesome as in “totally rad!” Look I said I was behind on the reviews. You’re stuck with “awesome.” And awesome is how these boots ski – in all conditions they were solid and dependable. I was surprised at how well the boots performed on ice and in various other lousy ski conditions – usually a light boot means a performance trade-off, but not this time. For serious alpine touring divas, the Diva really is the holy grail. Do all rave reviews fall back on that hackneyed metaphor? Gads, I’m slipping.

The instep strap buckle itself, while an excellent design, is kind of nonintuitive and a little strange to adjust – at first look, it appears to be kind of a ratchet type of system, which I guess it is, but it doesn’t really ratchet. You just shove it through the buckle and then strap it down. It would be nicer if you could ratchet it tight when it’s already buckled, so that you don’t just have to just guess how much to shove through. My other tester reported problems with ice buildup in the buckle when she’d undo it while skinning up. I didn’t have that problem, mostly because I skin with my boots buckled, but I can see how it could happen.

The Divas shine in the uptrack, as well, in large part thanks to that very nice flexible touring tongue. I think that the hallmark of a good touring boot is that you really don’t notice it much while skinning, and the Diva fits that bill perfectly. While trudging up the mountain (otherwise known as “touring”, but come on – it’s just trudging up the mountain. No amount of sugar coating will change that), you don’t have to think about, be distracted by, or otherwise notice the Divas. If you’re coming from a heavier boot, you might notice how light the Divas are, but that is an acceptable distraction for certain.