When buying ski boots, it doesn’t matter how carefully you research or how many laps you walk around the shop before throwing down your credit card—they likely won’t fit perfectly right out of the box. A perfectly reputable, high-quality boot may simply not work for your foot—and unfortunately many of us figure this out after dropping $700 and spending several ski days in cramped-up agony.
True, research and careful purchasing will help. But post-purchase, what steps can you take to improve your ski boot’s fit and conform it better to your own unique feet? We poked around and talked to a few local boot gurus (being a true boot expert is near-Yoda status), and came up with a basic run-down of your options.
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Start with the right shell size.
- This is key. If one of your feet is a bit bigger than the other, don’t feel like a total mutant—it’s a common issue. “Buy a size that fits the smaller foot, then mess with the shell and liner of the other boot to create room for the bigger foot,” advises Stephanie Humes of Jans Mountain Outfitters in Park City. You can usually create more room in a boot, but you can’t shrink it to fill up empty space.
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Procure a nice footbed.
- “The footbed of a boot is your direct platform. … It’s the chassis of the boot and it provides your basic support,” says Michael Strachan, a sage boot fitter at Park City’s Cole Sport. Your options? Superfeet and ALINE make quality footbeds that work right out of the box. Or you could have a custom cork footbed made (usually around $150), which can be worth the cash since it’s custom-conformed, a natural vibration dampener, and it’s sustainably sourced too.
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Custom mold the liners.
- Most of the nicer ski boots these days come with custom moldable liners—and you can buy liners separately too. Classic Thermo-Fit liners have certain areas that can conform around your foot’s idiosyncrasies when they’re warmed and molded. Intuition liners are 100-percent moldable when heated (not just common problematic spots). And ZipFit liners, made with cork and ceramic, are available in specific widths and can be re-heated multiple times. You can also decide to drop your inheritance on completely custom-made, foam-injected liners that are literally made on your feet. (These run around $400—it can work well, but it isn’t necessarily a fix-all for everyone.)
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Manipulate your boot’s shell.
- A little-known trick. Professional boot fitters can remove your liner and take a look at your bare foot within the shell to see where pressure areas are going to arise. And since boot shells are made of plastic that softens when heated, the plastic can be “blown out” (pushed out) in spots to relieve painful clamping on your bony feet.
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Grind away parts of the shell.
- This helps correct for pronation or supination. If you tend to roll your feet outward or inward, it will affect your boot comfort and skiing performance. A good boot fitter can grind or plane underneath the insides or outsides of your boot soles to level out your stance.
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Insert heel lift inserts.
- These small inserts can alleviate the toe-crunching effects of backseat skiing (obviously, correcting your technique and moving into a more assertive stance helps too). And if you have problems with bony or skinny heels moving up and down, a C-pad insert can hold your ankle in place.
Superfeet Wintergreen ski boot insoles
When you go to see the boot doctor, be ready to say exactly where it hurts. The hardest thing for them to work with is the tourist who whimpers, “My feet just hurt. Everywhere. I don’t know.” (The only prescription for a problem this vague is another Irish coffee at the ski bar.) Be ready to work with the fitter on specific areas that feel pinched or numb, and always try less-invasive procedures first. If you’ve tweaked all the little things and your feet still yelp all the way through an otherwise-blissful powder day, it’s time for more serious—and expensive—measures.
*Our thanks to the good people at White Pine Touring, purveyor of fine goods and guiding, for the use of their vice for this article’s photo. (I’ve almost recovered feeling in my right foot.)
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Tags: alpine touring, backcountry skiing, fit guide, skiing
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