La Sportiva Olympus Mons Boots size EU40.5

I found these boots to be quite warm but I still suffered from cold toes at high altitude.  It is important to note that when I tested them out, I had suffered from a lengthy bout of diarrhoea for around 30days straight!  This means that I was very low on energy and my body’s ability to generate heat was very limited.  And, without the use of supplemental O2, the body gets a lot colder.  Or maybe I have poor circulation in my toes?

I found the boots to be very comfortable if you size it correctly.  I generally wear an EU39/US7 for normal shoes but I purchased these in EU40.5/US8 from the US online.  I needed to make sure that they were not too small, and if they were ever so lightly large, I could always wear thick socks (which I do) and/or swap out the inner sole with a thicker Superfeet Green inner sole.  That said, the boots fitted perfectly (snug) without needing to swap inner soles.  They appear to be a ‘normal’ fitting boot...probably on the narrower side, and that's why it fitted better for me than length.

Since these boots are only used at very high altitudes on snow/ice, the use of crampons saves the high density foam soles from tearing up.  Foam soles are used as they provide much more warmth than standard rubber soles found on normal hiking boots.

The quick lacing system made putting them on and taking them off very easy.  The waterproof outer boot zipper needs to be waxed/lubricated for smooth operation.  Waterproof zippers are always stiff and can be a pain to zip-up.  A smooth operation when you are knackered will keep you in a positive frame of mind...and won't anger you to tug violently at the zipper to cause it to fail.

As you can see from the pictures I am a little clumsy with my crampons and I did cut the in-built gaiter.  The good thing was that they did not fray and held true until I got home to repair them with seam grip.

What I really hated was the front velcro gaiter opening.  The velcro would grab onto everything when you tried to put the boots on and off.  It would grab onto the laces and it was not as easy to deal with as I had hoped.  What may be a better design is to angle the velcro opening to better stay open rather than a vertical strip on the instep and shin.  Is this cover even necessary?  Comparatively, the Scarpa Phantom 8000m boots uses a waterproof zip, but that zip was crazy stiff to operate...can’t we find something that has a less stiff zipper operation and get rid of the velcro cover?

My Black Diamond Cyborg crampons (hybrid type) worked well with these boots and without any issues.

When I go to Everest/Lhotse, I will be using my 40 Below full neoprene overboots on top of the Olympus Mons to provide extra warmth.  These are slightly customised by 40 Below to have a very large crampon patch and they work with hybrid type crampons well (I tried them in the house).  There was no movement once everything has been fitted tightly between the crampon and the overboot.  I would not have confidence trying it with a step-in type crampon as the bail connection may not be secure as the neoprene is quite thick.  I don’t have that type of crampon so I cannot test it out for you...unless somebody wants to send me a free set of step-in crampons to try J.

This combination will hopefully provide me with all the warmth I need, and if it still gets cold, I will add some chemical hand warmers in between the gaiter/overboot to as close to the toe area as possible.  I don’t like putting things into the inner boot when I am wearing them, because, if things shift then they will be uncomfortable until the climbing has been completed for the day (you don’t want to be taking the foot out of the boot when it is -25C degrees on the mountain).

The most important thing is that the boots fitted me perfectly.  They were as warm as anything out there in the market and seem equivalently robust.  I’d like to try the Millet Everest boots but right now there is no point in having another set of boots unless one set fails, which is unlikely given the limited action high altitude boots see.