Salomon S/Lab MTN Ski Boot Transcend Blue/Black, 25.5

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 63-degree cuff rotation, and a weight well below that what you’d expect from a stiff AT boot, the Salomon S/Lab MTN 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 S/Lab MTN 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 63-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 S/Lab MTN 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…

Product Features

• Shell Material: [cuff] polypropionate, [shell] Grilamid, [spine] carbon fiber
• Flex: 120
• Last Width: 98mm
• Buckles: 2
• Walk Mode: 63-degree rotation