Snowboarding Boots

Today I ordered new snowboarding boots and they shipped today. Backcountry.com is amazing that way. I'm pretty much giddy and can't wait for our Vermont trip to try them out. My well-used K2 boots are 8 years old. I can't believe I've been snowboarding that long and I still can't get out of the pipe. I blame it on snowshoe for never opening their pipe until the last week of the season. My prediction is that they don't even bother to open it this year. They just taunt me with the phrase on their website, "opening soon," my ass.

Snowboarding has come a long way in the past 8 years. My K2 boots were the only women's boots I could find at that time, yet after I purchased them and did a bit more reading I found out that they were just men's boots with a women's tag on it. Sneaking marketing bastards. I'm grateful that I now have an abundance of brands and styles of brands to choose from in the world of women's boots. However, after further investigation, the shaft continues. This time although there are plenty of women's boots out there, it only matters if you have small feet. I wear a 10.5 and I found 2 brands, that make a women's boot over size 10. Even then, 1 of the brands only offers 10.5's in their entry-level boots. Seriously, this is ridiculous. I realize 10.5 is big, but I know I am not alone out here. Two years ago when I bought bindings I ran into the same problem. Companies make women's bindings, but not for boots over size 6, or some unrealistically small size. No offense ML, but often female athletes tend to not be petite little girls wearing size 6.

So big props to Northwave who makes a kickass boot and actually offers it up to size 11, gasp! I'm excited to finally get to play along in the world of women's snowboard gear.