Pierre Gignoux Mountain Alpine Touring Boot

This is an amazing boot for all sorts of touring. This shines for fast-and-light big mountain, but ultimately I use it for all sorts of touring needs.

It's without a doubt the most comfortable boot I've ever put on my feet, even including mountaineering boots. Of course, that's luck that my foot fits it to some extent, but it's also brilliant design work by PG. Every other ski boot, even the light ones, feel like a clunky mess compared to this boot.

Compared to an F1 LT, I find it to ski better, however it takes getting used to. The first day I was pretty disappointed but the boot has a steep learning curve. Figuring out how to properly utilize the internal lacing system both ascending and skiing out takes time, so give it a few days to really figure this one out.

The Good:
- Incredibly light.
- Possibly skis better than any other boot even close to this weight class. I'll take this over my F1 LT's any day.
- Hikes better than you can imagine. This boot puts your foot as close to the ground as trail runners and it is immensely valuable for booting. The under-foot carbon is so soft you can feel rocks under your feet which really helps with foot fatigue for me. First day I hiked out 3 miles on bare trail in them because I didn't feel like taking them off. Unthinkable for any other ski boot!
- Capable of technical climbing, holds onto the new style of Lynx crampons (but not the old generation of Lynx). Also works with BD Neve Pro for lighter applications. I'll use these boots for WI3+ glacier climbing, but absolutely not on mixed lines as they'd get completely destroyed.
- The boots are physically beautiful (in the seasons where they're not covered in rubber tape to protect them). A sunrise reflecting off a Pierre Gignoux boot's glossy surface simply makes you smile.

The Bad:
- It is a carbon boot, so it has durability challenges. It'll hold up to good hiking, but don't do so on volcanic rock. Even 10 minutes of volcanic scrambling will gouge up the soles. For forest hiking and the occasional bare ground it holds up well. The carbon can get damaged by hitting any rock so don't kick the front into rocks, and put Mastic tape on the lower 2" of carbon for the rocky seasons.
- I find these boots really cold, but I've read others say the opposite so this seems to be an opinion thing.
- You can feel a ski crampon under your boot due to the soft sole. This is an annoyance that might drive some people crazy, but isn't too awful.
- If snow balls up between the boot and ski, the soft sole means it feels like you're walking on a baseball. You have to clear it. Fortunately this seems to be a relatively rare occurrence.
- The internal lacing system is brilliant, but it is a serious pain to adjust. You have to take off the two upper buckles and un-zip the gaiter to change the tension on the internal lacing, and you will want to do this a lot when learning to use the boot. Even once mastered I find myself opening them up many times on a tour to fine-tune. I would be happy with added weight if it could be externally adjusted.
- Here's the worst thing. Both my boots cracked in the same place at the rear for no apparent reason. I don't even ski hard and they'd never been used on >85mm skis at that point. On the bright side both Pierre Gignoux and Cripple Creek helped out on this and got me replacements, but it's a lot of months down dealing with hand made boots in France. I've compared boots with someone who's put million(s) of feet vert on theirs and their boot looks totally different. It doesn't even have the seam line that cracked. I wonder if the design changed and got weaker? The replacement has the same feature that cracked and I suspect they will also break, I hope I'm wrong. It seems there is a stress riser from mold release at the peak-stress location at the back of the boot. I might reinforce the region with some extra carbon.

In conclusion, this boot is life changing to me, but do realize you're getting a specialty carbon boot with limitations. This isn't the right boot for every trip, but it does fit 80% of my days (pretty much the only days I won't use these boots are playing around on volcanoes in the late summer months, and mixed ice climbing). I'm more about the up-hill than the down-hill even in winter, if you were into charging hard on burly boots obviously these aren't for you.

Should you buy these? If you're into light weight ski touring on big objectives and have some extra money sitting around, give them a shot. Definitely not a beginner boot, nor is it a boot for every application. Anyone buying this should already have ski boots you're happy with continuing to use.

I'd give it 5/5 if they hadn't cracked and left me with doubts about the structural integrity.

A trick I found to make the lacing comfortable is to cut a wedge of plastic (something like a milk jug type of plastic) and stick it between the lace and the liner. Without this, the laces dig into my foot and ...

I went back and forth about ordering this for about a year and finally pulled the trigger this season, no regrets. I race a lot but do most of my training off the resort on a variety of skis ranging from race skis up to about 100 underfoot. In the past I used several different boots, no longer. The PG mountains blend the lightness, and more importantly range of motion, of a race boot with the ability to drive larger skis. I use them for pretty much everything at this point, long training days on the race sticks to pow days on the bigger gear. They crush it all. Important to note that they don't have quite the full range of motion that a full on carbon race boot does, this is due to the full liner which adds a little resistance. I have also heard from friends that they are hard to put on. While this hasn't been my experience I have put on similar carbon boots a bunch so maybe I'm just use to it. The full gaiter is an absolute game changer for skiing deeper snow, if you have ever used similar PG race boots for this you know the snow packs in and you're boots end up weighing a ton. Not an issue in the Mountains. For skiing larger skis, I mostly use them to ski soft snow which doesn't put a ton of demand on the boots (compared to skiing the resort or something similar) so I don't know how they behave in the regrade. For pow they're great, guaranteed to let you drop your friends on the skinner so you can get all the frieshies for your self! Only been using them for a couple months now so no real idea about longevity but so far so good. If you have got the dough and are sitting on the fence - get down, order these, and go skiing!