If you liked the Garmont boot fit of yesteryear, Scott continues to produce and improve their Cosmos model boot based on Garmont molds. We’ve done quite a few posts about Cosmos, including an epic with (subsequently fixed) problems with the Scott specified tech fittings — which are now in our opinion among the best in the industry in terms of working smoothly with tech bindings. While visiting with Scott at St. Anton I was concentrating on their Alpride airbag pack and a super ski pole “SRS” grip (sounds trival, but it’s not), but I did get reminded that the Cosmos II has some improvements.
The thinking part: One of the problems with 'cabrio' tongue ski boot shells is if you want touring comfort the tongue needs to bend, but it also can provide lots of beef if it's stiff. Cosmos II adds some hinge to the tongue, idea being that when you buckle down the hinge is somewhat canceled out since it's on the sides instead of the former bellows configuration (2013/14 model with black tongue). This is not the first time a hinged tongue has been attempted on a cabrio boot--nicely done in this iteration. That said, the best way to do this is provide some sort of specific latch or lock on the tongue hinge, to cancel it out while your skiing downhill. Tough to do, perhaps Cosmos III? Indeed, in my opinion one of the holy grails of ski boot design is to make a lightweight cabrio boot with a hinged tongue that 100 percent locks stiff for the downhill. Watch for this!
Beyond the dual injection (two kinds of plastic) tongue, biggest changes from original Cosmos are of course the excellent tech fittings, but also the improved (beefed) lean lock (both of these improvements are present in this season’s Cosmos, identified by the black coated tech fittings in the boot toe).
They say the buckles will be strengthened on Cosmos II (some of the original model’s plastic buckle straps broke) as well as being spring loaded in a way that doesn’t hold them open so wide.
Cosmos II, full view. Beyond changes noted above, the new boot might have buckles that are not quite so spring loaded. So they'll spring out of the way, but not so much that you trip on them while walking.
Catalog shot, it looked so tasty I had to publish it. Indeed I should admit that the best stock fit I've ever had with AT boots has been with Garmont, so Cosmos may always be kicking around here. Claimed weight 1450 grams for a size 27.5. Click to enlarge.
Note that Scott is also making a 3-buckle version of this type of boot, with Grilamid shoe and Pebax cuff, men’s is Orbit II (1,300 grams 27.5 catalog weight), women’s is Nova II (1,250 grams 24.5).
There is some history behind all this. Below is Scott’s take from the catalog, with a small bit of editing:
SCOTT & SKI BOOTS – THE RETURN: Ski boot development is not a new realm for Scott Sports. In fact, the company introduced the world’s lightest boot in 1971,known simply as the Scott Ski Boot (Wildsnow editor’s note, one of the strangest but most innovative ski boots ever, was pressed into service by many ski alpinists as a lightweight alternative, see photo below). During this era the Scott boots were considered state-of-the-art products in the freestyle scene and were used by many of the top-level competitors.
(WildSnow note: Along with the Scott boots being used for freestyle, the incredibly lightweight ski boot was the shoe of choice for pioneer extreme skier Patrick Vallencant, who set the tone for ski alpinism in the 1980s.)
Many years later, SCOTT made the decision to stop further production of the ski boot line and focus primarily on the development of poles and goggles.
However, the desire to eventually bring back boots remained in the minds of upper management, with the goal of eventually being able to offer a complete head-to-toe program. In the summer of 2012 this goal became a reality with the acquisition of the ski boot portion of Garmont, located in Montebelluna, Italy, well known as the heart of the ski boot industry. The popular footwear and boot manufacturer held a great reputation, especially in the ski-touring and telemark segment, maintained a wide variety of knowledge, and a lot of experience over the past 20 years. (WildSnow editor’s note, this is an understatement!)
Within just a short period, Senior Product Manager Hervé Maneint reorganized the team, restructured the line and established Scott’s new Research and Development Center near the different suppliers in Montebelluna. Only a few months later SCOTT presented its first complete boot collection at the 2013 ISPO tradeshow and began delivering products to the shops that autumn. Scott is very proud to be able to present new innovations, technologies and designs, as seen in the following highlight products: G1 130 Powerfit WTR, Cosmos II and Orbit II, in the second year of development.
You can use Google images to find many photos of the original Scott boots,late 1970s. One buckle, totally rigid shell other than a softer plastic spoiler. I skied a pair of mountaineering during most of one season, but couldn't get them to fit the way I wanted. They were as light as anything produced today.” title=”Original Scott ski boots, late 1970s. One buckle, totally rigid shell other than a softer plastic spoiler. I skied a pair of mountaineeing during most of one season, but couldn't get them to fit the way I wanted. They were as light as anything produced today.
Our previous Garmont Cosmos ski boot posts are extensive.
Shop for Scott boots formerly Garmont
Scott Cosmos boot shell break sizes. Click to enlarge.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
17 comments
Cabriolet.
Not cabrillo. Cabrillo is a region near San Diego CA.
In your estimate, is the new tongue any stiffer than the old Cosmos tongue? I love these boots but would kill for a stiffer tongue.
Could be slightly stiffer as it doesn’t have the small bellows at the break, but I don’t think it’ll be stiff enough to kill for, so all the people associated with this can breath a sigh of relief for now (grin). Your dilemma with stiffer tongue will never end until someone figures out a modern lightweight way to make the cabrillo ski boot tongue hinge while touring but latch/lock for downhill. Till then, you just can’t make a touring boot with too stiff a tounge, or it won’t tour. If you want stiffer use a different type of construction. Lou
Lou, as always, thanks for the continual feed on everything b.c.
As for Scott, and your readers are probably too young to remember, but in the mid to late ’70’s Scott was putting out super-light ski boots that were eerily similar to the current line-up of super-light SkiMo boots, albeit without walk mode. We were often laughed at by the super-heavy crowd (remember Hanson’s, with their square, blocky, iron-stiff look?). Full circle, forty years later.
is this a similar last to the old megaride?
OMR, you are so busted. Try scrolling down and reading the whole post, or at least skimming it (grin). Lou
Mike, as far as I can tell, yes similar.
Isn’t that a Spademan plate on the black boot sole? That’s another approach to developing a safe alpine release that faded into obscurity.
Lou, isn’t it a bit presumptuous adding a Wildsnow.com label to an image you admit to having found on google? ( “(Image from Google images, not sure where the original came from.)” )
Apart from that, great post 🙂
Etto, you can take it any way you want but every image we have on our server is watermarked with no nefarious or presumptuous intentions, simply to prevent hotlinking that we simply can’t afford financially in terms of bandwidth. I researched the image and couldn’t find a for sure original source and since it had no copyright I presumed it was public domain .e.g. fair use. So it’s been re-processed (sized, tone adjusted, etc.) and watermarked without a copyright symbol simply indicating it’s on our server. If someone wants to contact us and let us know it’s their image, I’m happy to take it down or add credit. I’m glad you called me out on that, as we get copyrighted stuff stolen all the time, so I’d never intentionally do the same to someone else!
P.S., How does this prevent hotlinking? Simply with the disincentive that if someone does hotlink they end up giving us free advertising. Oh, and I should mention that when we publish catalog page images we also watermark those for the same reasons, but to also hint to other bloggers that we did have to work at acquiring and processing such images so they might want to make/scan/process their own instead of using ours.
I hope that’s clear, I don’t want to look like some kind of idiotic hypocrite — though I can’t help that happening on occasion no matter what! (grin)
Folks,
Any of you know the shell size range on these. For example, my Megarides, megalites, and Radiums all have a shell size of 25-26.5. Does anyone know if these are shelled the same? It would be nice to try a pair of these out to see of they could span the function of a couple of the ones I already have to down size.
Ryan, I added shell break and sizes chart to bottom of blog post.
You can use that to interpret what shell size would be correct for you based on previous boot shell sizes you’re owned. But know these are different molds than previous Garmont, they’re similar in some ways but hard to know how they’ll match fit in comparison to your previous boots, other than probably being able to determine probably correct length as follows:
To be clear about all this, what you want to do with ski boot shell sizes is look at the inside of the scaffo (shoe) and you’ll see a single size number printed, that’s the actual length of the inside of the boot. You would then see where on the Cosmos chart that size was indicated, and that would probably be the same shell length.
For example, if the inside of your Radiums says “26.5” then you’d probably want to try on the Cosmos 26-26.5 shell with BSL of 296. That boot would give you two liner choices, a 26 or 26.5 and you’d choose the liner that fit best based on previous experience.
Lou
Damn Lou – fantastic beta as usual!
Thanks
I know this thread is old, but I am wondering if anyone can give a comparison between the new versions of the Scott boots: Superguide Carbon, Cosmos II, and Orbit II. I am especially interested in the Orbit II since I am not a heavy or large guy, and not a super hard charger, so I don’t want to buy more boot than I need. I wilI ski steep terrain form time to time in the Cascades, but I won’t do it at high speed. I’ve been on Tele for 20 years, but I have a solid alpine background (expert).
Also possibly Orbit II vs Dynafit Neo?
After all the doom-and-gloom reviews (broken tongues and walk mode), I was skeptical. But I bought a pair of 2016 Cosmos 2, put about 30 backcountry and several days of front country on them (skied high and hard), and I’m delighted. Nothing has broken. They flex really well for skinning (top buckles loose or not), and transfer power so well I usually ski them in walk mode! I save the ski mode for really technical descents, and then they are stiff as anyone would want. The only mods I’ve done are foil tape on the liners (a bit cold), and sewing a short flat webbing loop to the end of the powerstraps to make them easier to adjust with gloves on. These boots rock!
Hi,
can you compare the width of Scarpa Maestrale and Scot Cosmos?
Thanks
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