A contract of times gone by

I was called in while the Olympus boot was being designed. My input was to work above all on its weight. And then, secondly, to concentrate on a different kind of inner boot so as to modulate the level of thermal protection depending on the needs and conditions of the climb. What I really asked for was obsessive attention to the weight and consequently also to the sole. The K2 model, which was one of the first prototypes, was built around a sort of base-upper shell to which the sole was anchored, on which the upper was then built around and consequently the true and proper boot. It was like a sort of bowl and inside it the boot would be stuck on and sewn, which personally I thought was too solid and heavy. Giuliano Jellici after receiving my indications got to work to devise something and make a boot which was even lighter. After a few months I reached Tesero to see the prototype and they showed me this boot which had a hand-made sole, in a brownish opaque colour, which wasn’t a real and proper sole but rather a trial version in extruded material which represented the outline of the sole which would then be produced in rubber by Vibram. The sole significantly affects the shoe’s weight and in terms of the shoes being made at that time it was the heaviest part of the boot. I picked up the boot to look at it, grabbing it by the gaiters, what happened next was that I picked it up easily because it was a lot lighter than any other high altitude boot I had ever picked up so far. I was enthusiastic. It was exactly what I was looking for. Even in terms of its sole, that solution was perfect for me.

Jellici told me not to pay attention to the sole since this was only a fake prototype just made there and then to see the final effect of the shoe and that it would then be changed with one made of more solid material, thicker and therefore even heavier. I was about to leave for the winter expedition to Shishapangma and that boot was exactly what I wanted. I had to convince him to give it to me. I told Jellici that I was a bit sceptical, that during a Himalayan ascent the sole remains in contact with the bare ground, without crampons, only during very rare conditions. Basically, never. Apart from some sections of approach which can be easily avoided using other shoes, the high-altitude boot works well since almost all of the time it is used together with a crampon.

The solution was to think of the boot and the boot’s sole - I had only just realised this - together with the crampons. Not as something on its own as we had done up to then. «When I climb up an 8000 metre peak, except for when I’m in the tent, I always wear my crampons», I made it clear to him. They were stunned, they had never thought of it in these terms. I also made him notice that the sole was the part of the shoe’s surface which was in contact with the snow most of the time and through which - due to the thermal bridge created by crampons - the greatest dispersion of heat occurred. The sample sole they were showing me probably was not very resistant to wear but it would appear that, with air trapped inside, it could isolate and retain the heat of the foot inside better than the other one. And then above all, it was damned light and I wanted it at all costs.

What is used nowadays on all high-altitude shoes was born from this observation, from the wish to put that very lightweight prototype on my feet immediately and from the verification that in different parts of the sole different needs of resistance and wear were concentrated. The solution we use on all high-altitude shoes to this day, is to have different thicknesses and different materials in different areas of the sole.

It was clear that the tip needed to be stronger, also in case one needed to climb some sections on rock, while the central portion of the sole concentrated on thermal isolation. It was a visionary choice which opened up a new way of considering shoes and which charted the way. It has to be said that at that time the most popular high-altitude shoes were in plastic, in that moment it was only a matter of choosing how to make the shoes but also ask oneself if it was reasonable to think of high-altitude shoes in the future without a plastic outer shell. The idea of not using plastic came from the double need of innovation while delving into one’s industrial know-how and to keeping the costs of the moulds down.

It was the ability to avoid the obvious choices, which seemed obligatory at the time, that was La Sportiva’s trump card, as usual. nIt is transforming these limits into the project’s strengths that a series of shoes were created charting the way in the field of mountaineering. It is from then on and from those boots and those solutions that other models, ideal for use on the Alps or lower mountains, were developed. Nowadays high-altitude boots in plastic no longer exist. In this field, applying the La Sportiva method, this company has set an example and established a standard.