It wasn’t until I read this article in Fall 2015 that I found out why I had so much trouble hard shell ski boots that fit my feet – http://blistergearreview.com/gear-101/boot-fitting-101 and http://blistergearreview.com/gear-101/boot-fitting-101/boot-fitting-201
One needs to measure their feet for both length and volume
- Mondo size is the heel to toe length in cm.
- Then you measure with a tape heel to heel in a U to determine the volume.
My foot is 26.5. But the only Alpine ski boots I could get that fit my feet are Fischer Vacuum. Vacuum Ranger in my case since I wanted AT, Alpine Touring and I paired with with the Ambition binding. Two years later Fischer now has the Transalp Vacuum boots with a Tech, Dynafit, toe.
I couldn’t get hard shell Alpine and Telemark boots that fit. Many times I couldn’t even get my foot into the shell. When I could get my feet into a boot my feet just were not comfortable.
After reading this post I measured my instep and I found I was 28/28.5. Since most Tele plastic shells are marked 27/28.5 one has a 1.5 cm range from 27 to 28.5 depending upon the thickness of the liner.
So I got a used pair of Tele 27/28.5, put on the Intuition 26 liners that I had, and this combination felt really good. Now to hope for some snow here in Central NY state so I can try them out on the groomers and natural terrain. I had gotten a pair of the old Garmon Gara because their 25/26.5 shell was open enough in the instep. Then I got a foamed-in liner to use with the Gara because the Intuition were too tight on my calves.
Cave and SAR 