La Sportiva Boulder X Approach Shoe
June 24, 2010
Ah, the age old debate: what exactly IS an approach shoe? To what are we approaching while wearing this shoe? Traditionally, the answer is “the crag” but that still doesn’t explain the difference between a snazzy, official “approach” shoe and a regular old hiking shoe. This grizzled old gear tester doesn’t even know. When I go to the crag I wear hiking shoes. I suppose that approaching a rock route would be a reasonable inference; after all you need rock shoes to climb a rock route and it is SO not fun to hike in rock shoes. I know, because I have tried. What can I say, I hate carrying stuff. If I were to approach anything bigger, say, an alpine route, I sure wouldn’t want to bring along an extra pair of shoes just to approach the route, because then I’d have to carry them UP the route, unless of course I just discard them.
No chance of that with these babies; they are just tooo sweet to cast aside. Their value as an “approach” shoe is going to be dictated by the wearer; if you want to use them to approach something you go right ahead, they’re made for that. They have a climbing-boot look to them though they don’t have the beefiness of tread that climbing boots offer; most likely to up their “sticky” factor. They are nicely stiff which is a cool feature if you’re approaching anything steep. They’ve got enough padding for long hikes and enough stiffness/support for carrying loads. The sticky soles cling to steep inclines which I guess is a good warmup since you’re allegedly approaching a crag where you’ll don even stickier shoes. The fit is nice thanks to a longer-than-usual row of eyelets; you can really dial in the fit from arch to toe. The rubber sole extends up along the toe piece to keep your tootsies dry if you’re gauche enough to step in the mud in these high-class hoofers.
As usual with La Sportiva offerings, the Boulder X excels (ironically) on the downhills; the Impact Brake System footbed nicely cushioning your footsteps. I thought the steep-walled heel piece would be tricky and lead to ankle rolling, but so far so good. La Sportiva makes a really stable shoe and these are no exception. I’m sure the sticky rubber excels on red rock-type terrain, but we don’t have any of that here so I’ll just take La Sportiva’s word for that. In Alaska, we have razor sharp unstable choss piles for crags; that’s about the same thing as red rock, right? Shh, let me maintain my delusion that rock climbing in Alaska is a reasonable pasttime.
Though I love the looks of the Boulder X too much to abuse them as much as I could, I can recommend them as a light hiker. I’d even like to see a mid or high version of these for more burly, er, approaches. Fair warning; they do require a bit of a break in period so don’t go hitting the PCT on your first weekend in the Boulder X. Give it a few wearings and you’ll be happy as a well-shod clam. Quite a visual, that.
Other approach shoes I’ve tried tend to be on the heavy-on-style, low-on-function side, but the Boulder X covers all your bases. For once the women get a better-looking version than the men; the grey/sage looking nicely understated which my readers know I like. I do looove grey. Ooh, I even got some great grey bike shorts this week so I can wear a grey shell, grey bike shorts, and these lovely grey approach shoes. What? I can rock that look, just watch. But seriously, this is a great looking shoe with oodles of function, if you’re into that type of thing.
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