Although I have climbed a few mountains, I still feel a tad wary of describing myself as a “mountaineer”. So this review of my new La Sportiva G2 SM climbing boots might not be full of pukka technical terms, but it most definitely comes from the heart.
By way of background, I started climbing very late in life, and most of my recent climbs have been in the 6000m+ range, and all of them in the Himalayas in India (where I live), and they have all brought me huge joy.
With one caveat.
The only blot on my climbing horizon had been using hired climbing boots, which are usually heavy to carry and to wear, and exhausting to lace up, especially on summit night, when fingers inextricably turn to thumbs, and nerves are at their most tightly-wound.
As a not too experienced climber, I came to dread putting on and lacing up the double boots I would rent.
So in April this year I invested in a pair of La Sportive G2 SM boots and my life has changed for ever.
They are THE most wonderful boots ever.
I am beyond in love with them.
If the truth be told, I fell in love with them the moment I unboxed them.
But there was that $64,000 question – did these beauties need breaking in?
I imagined they did, BUT I had less than a month between purchase and leaving to climb Banderpoonch, a mountain in Uttarakhand in India.
I live in Delhi, where May temperatures are in the upper 30sC/low 40sC, so there was no way I was going to go for a walk in my boots, to break them in. I’d probably have passed out from the heat. So I wore them a couple of times inside the house, clumping round inelegantly in shorts against the heat, and wearing my boots.
And then off I went to climb, secretly wondering if I was being foolish & was going to suffer from blisters or other aches and pains, having not worn my boots enough.
No need to worry at all.
These beauties were like slippers from Day One.
I wore them on an acclimatisation hike up from our Base Camp to Camp One, and the boots were fabulous from the word go. This was the only time I wore them before we hit the snow and the proper climbing started.
Comfortable, super easy to put on, and oh-so-blissfully easy to lace up.
I was in heaven.
I never had one moment’s discomfort or stress in these boots. Not one.
They were easy to put on, requiring none of the contortions I remember from the hired double boots.
The inner is super easy to put on, and fastens with Velcro, and so is easily and painlessly adjustable. They weigh next to nothing, and each night I’d pop them inside my sleeping bag and we were all as warm as toast.
The outer boot…what total and utter bliss the La Sportiva G2 SM Boa lacing system is.
It is so easy and simple, and is perfect for folks like me, who get slightly stressed on summit night. On earlier climbs, I remember beginning to hyperventilate as I tried to bend over and lace up first the inner and then the outer boots, with all my layers of clothes on, in the cold, and inevitably in the middle of the night.
No such stress this time round:
1.Velcro the inner boot.
2.Snap the outer boot tight – the Boa lacing system is super easy to use, with 2 dials allowing you to adjust the tightness of your upper and lower feet.
3.Zip up the incorporated gaiters and you’re A for Away.
Here is the one and only Simone Moro (the SM of the name) talking about these boots.
They were light to wear, and so (obviously) light to carry.
They were blissfully comfortable and stress-free to put on.
And – call me shallow – I think they are pretty cool looking.
I bought the boots myself, and neither the supplier nor La Sportiva knows that I blog and review.
So, to answer the question I posed in the title of this review – how good are these boots?
They are wonderful. Totally, 100% recommended.
