Scarpa Boostic Review

su-per-la-tive

1. of, relating to, or constituting the degree of grammatical comparison that denotes an extreme or unsurpassed level or extent

2. a: surpassing all others: supreme

b: of very high quality: excellent

I’m going to try my best to not talk in grandiose superlatives as I describe the Scarpa Boostics. As you’ll see, this is no small task.

There are few things you can buy that will actually improve your climbing. A lighter harness or a well-ventilated helmet are nice, but will probably offer more of a confidence boost than any physical performance gain. Retiring that heavy 10.5 mm rope and tying into a skinny 9.5 might help to a small degree, and maybe the ease of clipping some super cool, hyper technical quickdraws will aid in a hard new onsight. But the truth is that good climbing shoes are the one thing that can make a real improvement in your climbing.

Don’t believe me? Watch what happens to a beginner who gets their first pair of “real” shoes, ditching the stretched out, two sizes to big, way too comfortable, old beaters they were rocking with socks. It’s almost magical when they get a high performance, downturned shoe with fresh rubber and suddenly their footwork becomes deliberate and intentional.

The Scarpa Boostics are the kind of shoe that can do that to your climbing.

I’m typically skeptical of the claims made by companies regarding their gear, and the initial hype surrounding the Boostic made it sound like the Holy Grail of climbing shoes. In fact, legendary shoe designer Heinz Mariacher described it as his best design yet. Here’s what I found.

The Boostics are a slightly down-turned shoe with a moderately stiff sole, comfortable leather and two Velcro straps that pull the shoe snug with your foot. The shape of the shoe made it great for sport climbing and technical trad climbing.

Almost immediately I found greater confidence with these shoes on climbs in Rifle that involved small edges and pulling with your toe, using and trusting footholds that I was hesitating with in the past. In Joshua Tree National Park, I used them to great effect on technical trad climbs that involved dime edges and jamming the toe in small cracks. In Zion, I loved using the Boostics on steep sport climbs and being able to toe hook around arêtes and to edge on small, sandy holds.

The Boostics took very little “break-in” time. After a few routes where they felt slightly stiff and awkward they were ready to go. Very quickly they had that comfortable, confident feel in large part to the excellent use of leather in the shoe, which is a mix of suede and Lorica, a synthetic leather that stretches but doesn’t stretch out and returns to its original shape after you take your foot out. The mix of the two materials allowed the shoe to conform to your foot after breaking in in some areas while returning to shape in other areas. Based on my experience, the grandmaster shoe designer Mariacher may have hit the nail on the head with this creative combination.

Negatives? Of course, there have to be some negatives but it’s hard to find very many. First, it’s not a crack shoe. I wore these on a two-pitch climb in Joshua Tree called Figures On A Landscape which is 95% face climbing, but the last twenty feet are a hand crack, and it hurt pretty bad to jam them in there. Second, they come with a hefty price tag. At $170 a pair, you need to be ready to fork over plenty of hard-earned coin.

I would recommend these shoes without reservation, and have jokingly told friends they would climb a few letter grades harder with these shoes. And while that might be a stretch, for me, the Boostics have become my go-to shoe for hard redpoints, and are now my favorite shoe in my sport climbing quiver.

For more information, or to purchase, visit the Scarpa website.

Disclaimer: Wait! Do you really need to buy more new stuff? If so, this product is worth a look. In the spirit of full disclosure, this product was provided to SplitterChoss.com for the purpose of reviewing. Don’t worry, though, our integrity can’t be bought!

Mike Schneiter is the owner of Glenwood Climbing Guides.