Climbing easy top-rope ice on Ice Candy at Akadake-Kousen, Japan
Unless you’re climbing really hard, I’d prioritise comfort
I recently bought a new pair of winter climbing boots, for 2 main reasons: I wanted a boot warm enough to climb Mt Aka (2,899m) in winter and I’m tired of losing a toenail every winter because my trusty La Sportiva Nepal Extremes are 1/2 size too small.
I’d settled on a pair of La Sportiva G-Summits, but thanks to 1/2 sizes not being available in Japan, I had the unhelpful choice of a bit too small or a bit too big – from a comfort viewpoint it was an easy choice, but as a not-so-great climber, I’m always a bit paranoid about my gear sandbagging me and I was worried that too-big boots might dent my confidence on a route that I knew would feel hard (the crux on the Mt Aka mixed route is Grade IV).
In the end, I went for 46s- because the discomfort from kicking into snow and ice all day in boots just a bit too small is a vibe killer: aside from the pain, I end up spending all day thinking and worrying about the fact I’m destroying my toes – and I’ve got enough to worry about already on a big day in winter…
The first conclusion of all this is that I am definitely a 45.5 for La Sportiva boots, so these are a little bit big. I did a lot of comparing them to my Nepals on steps and stairs around the house and after a couple of easy winter snow climb tests and some faffing around, I settled on a 3mm EVA shim to take up a bit of volume resulting in a bit more heel lift, but not much. Being a bit worried about feeling like my boots would be rattling around my feet on mixed and ice sections where I knew I’d need all the confidence I could muster, I read a load of online forums about boot fit and, unsurprisingly, found a lot of absolutism and vitriol about how your boots have to feel welded to your feet to climb ice, but not much that felt actually helpful. I was sure that they were as snug as they could be without being too small in the toe, but I knew that the only way to be sure would be to actually climb in them.
So how did it pan out? Once I was on the route I didn’t notice a thing: they were super-comfortable on the walk-in, toasty warm at -30ºc belays and I didn’t notice a hint of heel lift for the relatively tech mixed moves around steps and up chimneys of the West Face Shu-Ryo route.
When I buy another pair of boots, I’ll definitely choose 45.5s if I can get them, but in this case, I’m 100% sure I made the right choice. If you’re climbing really hard, technical stuff I’m sure the precision of your boot fit makes a big difference – but I can say for certain that I didn’t think about my boots once on some of the coldest, hardest pitches I’ve climbed and not having to think about sore toes and being tentative when kicking into steps or balancing on front points was game-changing for me. Next time I head out, it’ll be nice not having to think about boot fit or sore feet – I can just concentrate on the climbing instead.