Alico double leather boot?

[pinco]

Leather boot + removable inner boot for cozy & dry feet on multi day trips—what’s not to love? But how do they ski? Does anyone have practical experience with them? They look pretty big and bulky. Too much weight for cross country? Enough support to drive downhill skis?

[fisheater]

I have an Alico Ski March surplus boot. It has a stiff heavy sole that in decent conditions drives my 86 mm underfoot Tindan. From photos I believe the Double to be similarly soled. However I will be driving into a snowstorm to ski a couple feet Monday morning. While I’m hoping to ski that Ski March boot, I will have my T-4 with me as well.
As far as weight, and touring I will surmise that my boots are lighter lacking the liner, and being cut just above the ankle I believe offers they offer better range of motion. My Alicos tour much better than my T-4, but not so good that I didn’t purchase an Alaska 75, for those times when a lighter boot will be sufficient.

[fgd135]

I had a pair of those Alico doubles, and skied them a few times before deciding they were too short for me, but the boots were quite supportive for leather, and would make a good traditional leather expedition or backcountry boot for carrying big packs, or alternatively, as a trad leather on-the-hill tele boot. The outer boot uppers are reinforced with Salpa, which adds quite a bit of lateral stiffness compared to leather alone, although nothing like a plastic boot. Salpa does eventually wear and soften up, losing some support, but depending on your skiing style this may never be an issue, esp., if touring v. tele skiing. The soles are telemark 20mm thick wedge insole type and might be too thick for even some current 75mm tele bindings...nice thing about double boots is that you can remove those liners at the end of the day and carefully dry them out, even use them as hut slippers.
These boots have stiffer uppers and are a bit taller than the older Asolo Summit telemark doubles that once set the standard for backcountry leather boots, and are very similar to the Crispi and older Merrell leather doubles that also used either salpa or PU linings in the uppers. They're a bit heavy and don't flex as easily as a single leather boot, like the Alico ski march, for general touring, and will take some good miles to break in, or lots of turns on the hill. But they're gonna be WARM on very cold tours. They're heavier than many plastic tele boots like Excursions, T4 and even my T2 Ecos, and lack the height or forward-lean shin support of a plastic boot, but have a more natural flex and after breaking in would probably be fairly comfy.

[Telerock]

I have had a pair of the alico doubles for years. They ski similar to my favorite boot; asolo extremes. They come with nylon/vecro straps (removable) that are helpful for stiffening if you occaisionally ski lift-serve. I like the real leather insides (hard to find in these days of foam interiors). The only down side is have to do up four sets of laces. On the upside, you can drive a car with the “liners”.

[connyro]

I have had a pair of the alico doubles for years. They ski similar to my favorite boot; asolo extremes. They come with nylon/vecro straps (removable) that are helpful for stiffening if you occaisionally ski lift-serve. I like the real leather insides (hard to find in these days of foam interiors). The only down side is have to do up four sets of laces. On the upside, you can drive a car with the “liners”.

I had a pair of those double boots. They ski nothing like the Asolo Extremes which I enjoy quite a bit. The double boots have nearly as much stiffeners in the outer boot as full on plastic boots. They give the appearance skiing in leathers without the advantages of leather. They are low cut for how burley the boots are and very stiff and heavier than my Excursions. In my opinion the only thing good about them is that they are warm as hell.

[Cannatonic]

Just curious, did you see the Alico Doubles for sale anywhere? Haven't seen them for sale anywhere in years

[fgd135]

Just curious, did you see the Alico Doubles for sale anywhere? Haven't seen them for sale anywhere in years

Search on ebay UK.

[Cannatonic]

not many sizes left...too bad....beautiful craftsmanship! Dozens of plastic boots pumped out of a machine are available, so few of these.

[connyro]

not many sizes left...too bad....beautiful craftsmanship! Dozens of plastic boots pumped out of a machine are available, so few of these.

s-l1600.jpg

craftsmanship IS amazing on these boots. I'd still rather use light plastic over the doubles. To me the doubles feature all if the bad aspects of plastic boots (heavy, lack of feel) but with a leather veneer and none of the positive aspects of good leathers (fit, feel, lightweight). YMMV.

[habib]

I've skied Alico Double leathers for about 15 years. They are far and away my favourite boot (out of a fairly small sample, admittedly). I pair them with skis ranging from Madshus Glittertinds through Asnes V6s (my go-to ski) and fatter Hagens (107-71-84 mm). I've mainly used them for hut-to-hut touring in the Chic Chocs (Logan sector), the patrimonial backcountry trails in the Laurentians, the odd day yoyoing at closed lift areas (e.g., Alta, Monte Plante) or in glades normally skied by AT skiers (e.g., Montagne Noire). In short, decent amounts of touring as well as decent descents.

I disagree with the poster who says they don't have feel. Broken in, the feel of the snow is great. I have a pair of 20 year-old Scarpa T3s. The difference in feel is night and day. I never ski the T3s; I'd take the Alico double leathers over them 7 days a week and twice on Sundays. I wouldn't rate the feel of the snow much different than an old pair of floppy Merrell single leathers I had. I think that you need to break them in before you make any conclusions about snow feel.

Their advantages: great control on descents, extremely comfortable, extremely warm (no problems at -30 to -35 C), durable, easy to dry overnight because you can remove the liner, and you can wear the liner as a hut bootie and save some weight when touring hut-to-hut.

Their disadvantages: heavy (mine weigh in at 1.7 kg per foot), and you must get sizing right or you can get the boot creasing over the toes in a painful way.

They wouldn't be my very first choice for kick and glide, mainly due to weight, but they are surprisingly okay. Twice this past week I've been skiing with younger, fitter skiers in NNN-BC equipment. I've had no trouble keeping up with them on back-country trails, or even pushing them, even on lakes. Obviously, they wouldn't be great for cross-country skiing in groomed tracks. I've done it, and I'm not the slowest, but it isn't very efficient. I wouldn't take anything else hut-to-hut touring around the Chic Chocs particularly in early February when it can get cold.

I'd be delighted to find a lighter boot (e.g., a single boot) that offered some of the advantages of the Alico Double with less weight. I've been breaking in a pair of Alico March boots for about a season (skiing them only occasionally). Unfortunately, I don't really notice the weight savings (1.2 kg per boot) but I do notice that they are less comfortable and offer less control. Maybe with more breaking in they will be better; maybe a different boot would be better; maybe if I were a better skier I would not need the control offered by the Alico Doubles. So YMMV.

You can count my upvote as two votes since I have a buddy who also swears by them. One story: we rarely ski lift areas, but one spring we did go to Tremblant to ski the steep mogul bits on the North side. I had a chuckle hanging back to listen to the downhill skiers watch him and ask each other how this old man in leather boots was making them look like schmucks.

BTW, this is my first post so I'd just like to thank everybody who has posted useful information here in the past. I've consulted it quite frequently and it has been very helpful.