In reply to James Edwards: He, he. I was waiting for a chance to have a rant on the Baturas... So i guess is now or never.
Comfortwise...
> Also, i don't know if anyone else has found that the bend in the tongue of the Baturas that has a seam in it is a little 'sharp'?
A little sharp? It kills my feet. It cuts circulation, making the foot a bit numb, as well as catching the nerve when front pointing, and being the second place where most pressure is applied by the boot, then you can figure out how it feels after a few ice pitches.
The place where most pressure is applied? The ball of the foot. i don't know what's with the design, and it's a problem that featured in the Nepals to a lesser extent, but somehow, regardless how you place your feet and whether you are walking, front pointing, french pointing, etc. it feels like the whole body weight is held with the ball of the feet, which after a couple of ours it feels like if someone is hitting you on it with a hammer with every step, followed by compressing it with a vice to the point that i want to cry. And when you finally manage to top out (if you do), then you are looking at an even more painful prospect. The Descent! Where to the combination of the hammering in the balls (of the feet, but the feel is the same), and the bend of the tongue making it's way through your tendons, both with increasing force, you have to add the feeling of kicking a wall with every step, courtesy of the 'roomier' toe box allowing your toes to hit the front of the boot. Any attempt to tie the boots tighter to stop it is counteracted by an exponential increase in the pain/numbness caused by the tongue.
Ah, and at this stage is when you realise that the gaiter is so tight that is making the eyelets fuse into your skin, but due to the all round pain, it hardly makes any difference.
The main reason i bought this boots, is that after having had pretty bad moments with other boots, when i thought my toe nails would just pop-off due to the cold and that i'd have get an office job 'cause i'd have no feet to stand around anymore, is their supposedly "excellent heat retention which has been tested even in extreme conditions on Himalayan summits", and the promise that this was "the ultimate boot for WINTER alpinism". After all, Colin Haley used a pair of these when doing the Cerro Traverse, and if they are good enough for him... Well, Colin must have still been on drugs by then, and i believe his choice of using these boots is what made him think twice about his judgement and drove him into rehabilitation.
Is not that they are particularly cold, specially when compared with other Sportiva offerings. They actually are perfect when you are moving (in summer), with little overheating/sweat, but as soon as you stop to belay, or you reach your bivy spot, then you wish you had bought something else. Winter alpinism in them? I'd think thrice about it.
The fact that the aforementioned tongue cuts the circulation doesn't help much either.
Now, it might be that they just don't feet my foot shape (possible), and they'll probably be a few posts saying that they use Baturas and are great and it's the best boot they had. Well, lucky you, but certainly i'm not alone in my experience, i know of people who sold his on e-bay after the first use, loosing a couple of hundred quid in under a week!
But then, even if they do fit you and you share an enjoyment of uncomfortably cold feet with Andy K and Ian Parnell, you may think that having a Sportiva pedigree, the construction would be quality and that you cannot go wrong.
Really? Well, you are wrong.
Constructionwise, they must be the most disappointing bit of kit i ever owned (a la par with the Berghaus arete 45, for which i already had a rant as long as this one).
Firstly, the rubber rand that covers the toe area started peeling off due to the rubbing when walking in semi-hard snow. Not that a big problem there i thought, since there's another layer of rubber underneath. But then, surprise, surprise, the underlying rubber layer only overlaps for about a centimetre, so i ended up with a fairly big area of untreated leather being exposed in the toe area. Now, this boots aren't the warmest to start with, but having a hole in toes where the leather just absorbs very cold melt water and soaking through straight into the toes isn't the kind of stuff you look for in £300+ boots.
This happened within the first month after buying the boots, so i obviously went back into the shop. Their reply: Yes, that's happened before, but Sportiva doesn't allow the shops to deal with returns. The boots have to be sent to the Sportiva factory along with the original purchase receipt (long gone), and within 6 to 8 weeks they'll send them back repaired, or repaired at a reasonable rate. Is this the kind of service you expect from a company after buying £300+ boots? And what am i supposed to do for 2 months in Chamonix without boots?
So i keep climbing with 1 month old £300+ boots covered in gaffa tape, and a month later, the tongue starts splitting in the area where the laces rub, and after another month the tongue is so worn that now even the laces are also having a go at my foot. I just cannot believe it. Did i buy boots or Piranhas?
And just to top it all, after only 3 months use, the sole in the toe area is so worn that i'm already going through the plastic mid-layer.
No that it matters, since they'll probably disintegrate before there's a need to resole.
(Feel a bit better now)