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The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Double boots (climbing specific) Part Two the Spantik




The La Sportiva Spantik








They are tough, durable enough and not too heavy.  The laces, lace eyelets and inner boots could be better.   It would be a much better boot by most accounts if delivered with the Baruntse's Palau inner boot.


La Sportiva Spantik 3#.05oz / 1362g
La Sportiva Spantik with a Baruntse liner  2# 12oz / 1247g

La Sportiva Baruntse 3#4oz / 1470g

Scarpa Phantom 6000 new 2010 model 2#10oz / 1190g

La Sportiva Olympus Mons 3#6oz/ 1530g






French Mtn Police uniform boot?

photo courtesy of Courtney Ley 
The newest mtn bike shoe?  





The Spantik is the one double boot that seems to dominate the cold weather climbing world right now below 6000m.  Only the Scarpa 6000 has made much of an impact on that good fortune.  

The Spantik is simply a great boot for the intended purpose.  The technical lace system while originally not very durable has been beefed up a bit and now we don't hear of the failures the first few seasons brought.   The inner boot is hard to heat form but when done correctly offers a very good fit.  But the inner isn't all that durable and still easy to pull eyelets out of.  They do climb ice and mixed very well though.  A good many (most) of the cutting edge cold and hard climbing in the last few years has been done in the Spantik.

57g is about 2 oz

172g about 6 oz

The difference in climbing in a lighter boot?  The extra ankle and calf support is a noticable on the Spantik.  The warmth?  Only the Oly Mons stands out here in warmth.  All of these boots are plenty warm for any where under 6000m in winter. 


More on the Spantik here:


http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2010/04/la-sportiva-spantik.html





5 comments:

Kai said...

Dane:

Any chance you could post a picture of the Baruntse liner? I've never seen one and would be interested to be able to see the differences between the Bauntse and Spantik liners. Are they the exact same liners that Palau sells on their web site?

http://www.palau-boutique.com/palau-mountain,us,4,PAL-MOUNT.cfm

Dane said...

Kai, in the cold thistle link at the bottom of this article are several pictures comparing the two inner boots. That specific liner is only sold by La Sportiva.

Trevor said...

Dane:

Question for you about crampon fit/Boot selection, I have a pair of the Petzl Lynx's and I'm doing most of my climbing in the Colorado Rockies, I've been using the plastic toe piece for the Lynx's on a pair of Sportiva Trango Guides for some easy ice climbing. My question is twofold, is there any downside to not using a toe bail, and if there is, are the Petzl and BD toe bails interchangeable because I have been having fit issues on my Koflachs and from what I have read on your blog the new Petzl toe bails have some fit issues and I know BD sells replacement toe bails. Also, I'm considering buying a double boot for cold weather for climbing since my Koflachs have too much slop for any technical climbing, would you recommend the Phantom 6000's or the Phantom Guide's?

D said...

the biggest problem with the spantik? They don't make them big enough stopping at 47, whereas the Baruntse (and the Batura just) fits even bigfoots like me!

Anonymous said...

Hey Dane,
I just got back from The Disapointment Cleaver on Rainier and saw Dave Hahn and quite a few other guides wearing the Baruntse, but didn't notice any Spantiks. It was well below freezing till the sun came up and my toes were verging on numb in my trango ice evos. Definitely would have been hot as hell in the Baruntse for 75% of my time up there but if things had gone wrong I would have been in trouble. Thanks for all the great info on your blog, enjoy reading it.