Over the past decade I’ve been using the Boots for on 90% of my backcountry missions with well over 1000 days of tedious climbing and doing everything I can to break down the boots to on avail. I’ve had numerous people ask me if they are worth purchasing and I always say yes and so I thought I would put up a Fitwell backcountry snowboard boots review from my experience.
When you are in the backcountry and climbing up a technical line would you want a snowboard boot made by a mountaineering company or a mountaineering boot made by a snowboarding company.
Fitwell has been in the mountaineering game for a long time so when they decided to make a snowboarding boot there primary focus was to make something strong, stiff, durable and crampon compatible and in all 4 fields they have worked beautifully. The average boots these days are beaten to death after a full season of climbing but my boots are still as solid as the first day I got them, but now more broken in and giving a better feel.
Testing Ground
We have a saying if you want to test a boots durability take them through a glacial moraine and see what is left of them afterwords and I can say that mine have gone through numerous moraine bashing trips and have held up to the challenge. With crampon compatibility in the heal and a vibram sole they give a solid feel and are incredibly stable in situations where loose crampons can be incredibly dangerous and for this fact alone they are worth there weight in gold. Yes they are expensive but they pay for themselves after 2 years of not having to buy new boots every season. For my time in New Zealand, Norway and Russia I’ve been exclusively using the Fitwell Backcountry Snowboard Boots.
It’s very important to understand that they are mountaineering boots so when in the resort I like to use other boots but when touring and there is any chance that there will be climbing they stand far above your standard snowboarding boots.
I have customized them a small bit getting rid of the liners that are included and switching over to the Intuition Pro liners as they have a bit more snug of a fit.
The Pros and Cons
PROS-
Crampon Compatibility
Durability
Stiff Vibram Sole
Top Notch for climbing
Cons-
They are quite Heavy
Dare I say too stiff for resort riding
Takes a bit of time to break in