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Skiing on the Scarpa Skookum Backcountry Boot – Guest Review

By Lou

Text and photos by Lee Lau

This is a followup to my previous WildSnow Scarpa Skookum review, with emphasis on the subjective feel of the boots as opposed to quantitative measures. I got my impressions of the boot’s skiing and touring ability by comparing the Skookum against other boots that I have recently used: Garmont Mega-Ride (1650g), Dynafit Zzero 4 carbon boot(1585g), Dynafit ZZeus (1800g); Scarpa Spirit 4 (1870g). The Garmont MegaRide in particular is a four-buckle Dynafit compatible boot veteran now into its fifth year and serves as an adequate baseline for subjective impressions.

Lineup, Skookum in middle, Spirit to left, Mega Ride to right.

I skied the Scarpa Skookum with 185cms Salomon Guns, and with 178 cm Dynafit Manaslu skis. Both skis were mounted with Dynafit Verticals. The boots saw use over a five day period of ski touring; 2 days in powder and 3 days in corn and spring slush.

Reviewer’s biases
My ski touring career spans about 13 years, starting out on leather telemark boots and three-pin bindings and migrating to alpine touring setups consisting of Fritschi Diarmir Freerides and Dynafits with a variety of skis. My touring time mostly consists of day-trips, weekend multi-day trips and two or three multi-day traverses during a season. I weigh 155 lbs and ski mainly in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia in the Vancouver/Whistler/Squamish area. Local mid-winter snow is usually of the higher water content variety, thus necessitating bigger skis paired with boots that will drive them.

Approaching Anniversary Col in the Joffre Group – 1100m approach skinning

Touring – skinning performance
Skookum comes with two tongues: an incredibly rigid orange tongue and a silver, soft touring tongue. The tongues can be swapped without tools. I first tried the Skookum with the stiff alpine tongue and found that tongue-boot combination to be underwhelming. Even with all buckles undone, the boot felt stiff and blocky; almost like skinning in an alpine boot.

Scarpa Spirit 4 also comes with two tongues, similar to Skookum.

I was disappointed as my previous experiences had been to the effect that Scarpa’s boots were superior touring boots, having some of the nicest progressive flex patterns among boot manufacturers. Thankfully, my faith in the joy of Scarpa boots on the skintrack was restored when I put the touring tongue on the Skookum. The touring tongue transforms the boot; there’s a nice amount of freedom in the foot and gliding on the track feels natural. For me, the Skookum has that magical Scarpa touring feel – when you use it with the touring tongue.

Bootpacking and hiking
Spring skiing missions often involve foot travel, be it walking or climbing. Thus, in my opinion a ski boot is of acceptable quality should allow the foot traveling skier to get to their objective safely and in decent time, with at least a modicum of comfort. With that criteria in mind, Skookum passes. It’s certainly neither a 5.10 rock shoe nor a light, comfortable approach shoe, but it works. The boot’s sole has grippy lugs; it accepts crampons easily and the generous cuff movement and support allows a certain amount of flexibility for mildly technical moves.

Skiing the Joffre Peak spine line.

Skiing
If my comments are lukewarm with respect to the Skookum’s bootpacking/hiking performance and tourability it may be because the Skookum design is biased towards the downhill end of the uphill/downhill trade-off. To that end, Scarpa’s designers have succeeded. With the alpine tongue, I found the boot to be too stiff – almost dead in its feel. A heavier skier might need that support and appreciate it, but at my light weight the boots seemed to isolate me from feel of my skis. With the touring tongue installed, the boots were transformed. The fabled Scarpa progression was evident; small variations in fore-aft lean allowed me to control downward motion with confidence. The Skookum’s lateral stiffness is also more then adequate – laying turns through powder then dropping through variable snow with equal ease. (I received and skied prototypes that will be re-designed to introduce more progression into the production version of the boot. This will likely make a really good boot even better.)

I never did get to try the Skookum in hard-pack or groomers. I suspect that they would shine in that situation (especially with a narrow-waisted ski) due to their stiffness when equipped with the stiff alpine tongue – but that is not typically the primary reason for the ski tourer to purchase a boot.

Some quibbles: The catches on which the Skookum’s buckles engage are prone to icing up. A well – placed prod with a ski pole solves that. The Skookum buckles are difficult to engage, particularly when using the stiff alpine tongue. Perhaps some camming mechanism could be designed into the buckles?

Lee’s test zone — skiing Mt. Matier.

SUMMARY
Skookum is incredibly tuneable and is the closest I have seen to a one boot quiver; versatile enough for inbounds, general backcountry and traverses. Perhaps that is because Scarpa hasn’t really approached the Skookum as if it was one boot but has seen fit to accessorize it with various options that garage mechanics, hobbyists and professional boot fitters around the world have for years used to customize boots (eg., different tongue flexes, booster straps etc.).

In summary, Skookum tours well, is comfortable on bootpacks and hikes — and does drive those bigger skis just the way I like.

Cons:
* Relatively heavy
* Almost too stiff when used with the alpine tongue (lighter skiers should use the touring tongue)
* Buckles could be better

Pros:
* Smart design offers incredibly versatility with interchangeable tongues, removable spoilers, Booster straps etc.
* Terrific Intuition stock OE liner
* Will comfortably drive big skis

Posted by Lou on May 14, 2008 | Filed Under Boot Reviews

Comments

14 Responses to “Skiing on the Scarpa Skookum Backcountry Boot – Guest Review”

Tom G May 14th, 2008 5:52 pm

This is a good follow up to the first review. The first one left a lot to be desired in terms of describing how the boot acctually performed. Can you add some detail on how the boot fits compared to other Scarpa boots? I’ve found Scarpa AT boots to be quite wide and high volume, particularly in the forefoot, and I wonder if this boot is similar. Also, some additional comments on how this boot performs realitive to the others you mention would be appreciated. A potential boot buyer is almost always interested in learning how another boot skis realative to something they may already know. Of course this is completely subjective, but every bit of info helps. Thanks.
Lee Lau May 14th, 2008 8:00 pm

Tom,

I put my own Intuition liners in the Scarpas and fit into them fine. My own boot is a Garmont MegaRide with Intuition liners. I have wide, flat feet. Some other friends of mine tried the boots and found them to feel adequately wide or even too wide (before liner molding) at the toe.

You’re right about the previous article in that all I wanted to achieve there was a superficial look at the boot. I only had one day on them at that point and I didn’t think that was a fair review.

I should have been more clear that when I said “stiff” I meant stiff relative to the other boots I have used.

From stiffest to softest, this is my impression of the boots I have skied compared to each other. I would rate the Scarpa Skookum with the stiff tongue as just a tad less stiff then my alpine boot setup (Atomic Freeride 10:20 boots with plugs removed – a relatively soft alpine boot)

- > Scarpa Skookum with stiff tongue

-> Tie – Dynafit ZZeus – Scarpa Skookum with soft tongue

-> Tie – Scarpa Spirit 4 and Dynafit ZZero Carbon 4

-> Scarpa Spirit 3 and Garmont MegaRide.

-> Scarpa F3
Lee Lau May 15th, 2008 11:41 am

I thought I might also mention some other things about fit:

Skookum comes with a 4mm boot board inside the boot shell. This boot board slides into the lower shell and locks into place. This lowers the volume of the fit from a traditional SCARPA fit (SCARPA has comments both ways, that SCARPA doesnâ€™t fit wide enough feet, and that they are not low volume enough, which tells me that SCARPA is somewhere in the middle, probably where you want to be as a starting point).

This new boot board allows you to either have a lower-volume fit, or you can pull it out and increase the volume. Easy for people to do off the shelf, and it makes a dramatic difference in the fit.

This boot board was introduced in the current year (the past fall) in the very downhill-oriented Hurricane (because skiers skiing a boot of that type typically want a tighter fit) and the womenâ€™s AT boots (the Diva and Star Lite, because women often have a lower volume foot).

Next fall, this will be a stock item in those three boots, as well as in the Skookum, Typhoon, Domina, Spirit 4 and Spirit 3. SCARPA apparently had customer input to the effect of asking them to offer this to everyone, because the skier can totally customize it themselves.

So to summarize, pulling that board out of the Skookum would increase the overall volume, leaving it in decreases the total volume.

Now if the boot still has too much volume, remember that the Skookum will come with an Intuition liner. Intuition liners are reknowned for being incredibly receptive to thermo-fitting. When I put Intuition liners in my MegaRides to replace (admittedly packed-out) G-fit liners I was amazed by how much more space they took up to the extent that I had to expand the buckle settings in my MegaRides.

So as for foot width, certainly shells are somewhat of a limiting factor, but Intuitions have a much wider range of volume (they both puff out more and pack down more when heated correctly under the guidance of someone who knows how to fit them well), thus they will fit a far wider range of feet than will a boot with a traditional thermo liner. Again, the key being when the Intuition liner is properly molded.
Tom G May 15th, 2008 12:09 pm

Thanks Lee Lau, that additional info really helps. I’m skiing the Zzero 4 CF now, but I agree with you that the Scarpa boots seem to be the superior boots when touring (I was previously in a Matrix). I really like the Spirt 4 but the forefoot fit is just too wide and high volume for me, so I’m intriguied with new boot board shim. The flex comparision is really helpful too. Also I seem to recal reading somewhere (was it your review?) that the Skookum has a flatter non-arched boot board that is also appealing.
Lou May 15th, 2008 12:43 pm

For correct fit, of more importance than shell toe width (which can easily be compensated for), is how the heel pocket works for your foot. But that’s harder to evaluate, it usually requires molding the liner and skiing in the boots for a day. Demo of this stuff is so important, too bad it’s not easier to do.
Tom Gosiorowski May 15th, 2008 7:34 pm

Indeed, for me the most important aspect of fit is around the ankle and leg. But, after that I’m always looking for a boot that dosen’t require me to add a bunch of foam padding, shims, etc… My base line for comparrison is my alpine race boot, and while it’s true that I wouldn’t want to skin in that boot I also wouldn’t rather ski downhill in anything else. It is unfortunate we can’t more easily demo gear, but oh well. And for those of us trying to buy on the cheap online these online reviews, even though subjective, sure are helpful.
Jordo May 16th, 2008 1:13 pm

The Scarap promo video displayed their nifty new Intuition+tongue liner, but from your photos it looks as if the boots you skied had the stock wrap liner (?)

Wonder why they decided to shorten the cuff on their downhill-oriented boot? Makes the tongue look huge!
Lee Lau May 19th, 2008 12:01 am

Jordo – I skied with my own tongues. I didn’t want to cook the liners with which they came. These are prototypes and didn’t have the tongue liner. I have pictures of the new Intuition tongue liners but didn’t get the shots in time to post with this review.
Lee Lau May 19th, 2008 12:02 am

Whoops – I mean I skied with my own Intuition liners
Briann January 11th, 2009 4:57 pm

Lee, in your opinion, could one do longer multi day tours with these, if their weight were compensated for with a lighter ski and Dynafit binding? I am having a tough time getting a good fit in some of the lighter boots and these fit me so well.
Alfred February 12th, 2009 7:59 am

What exactly are the unique dynafit mounting instructions for the Skookum that I have read are different than other dynafit compatible boot?
Alfred February 12th, 2009 8:03 am

when I tried on the skookum in the store I noticed that when flexed forward the second buckle and the third buckle banged into each other. Has anyone else noticed this and is it a concern?
al
Jonathan Shefftz February 12th, 2009 8:24 am

“What exactly are the unique Dynafit mounting instructions for the Skookum that I have read are different than other Dynafit compatible boot?”
– Some Scarpa boots have the toe interface set further back from the leading edge of the boot toe.
– Therefore, adjustments are necessary both for the mounting jig length and the fore/aft positioning of the jig on the ski.
– For the TLT Classic/Speed, with the very small fore/aft adjustment range, this is very important, since otherwise the gap can’t be set correctly, and the mount is pretty much botched.
– For the Comfort and Vertical ST/FT, it’s far less critical: you’ll just end up with a little more adjustment range in one direction than the other, and you’ll be slightly off the midsole mark on the ski, but so little that it’s highly unlikely to be noticeable.
ZLP January 19th, 2010 8:59 am

All -

Any thoughts on this boot for long multi-day tours, or is it just too beefy? Trying to really think about this boot vs. Spirit 4s and Radiums for Haute Route type trips, but want to be able to ski hard on the down… Thanks guys.