We weren’t sure if we’d be able to test boot this past year, given the challenges that Covid-19 continued to throw at us, but Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Oregon did an outstanding job of keeping skiing safe throughout the entire season and never had to shut down or curtail operations once due to the virus. In April we were granted permission to conduct a small (masked and physically distanced) product test mission using the massive upstairs of Pine Marten Lodge at mid-mountain as our test center. We couldn’t have been happier to be back to testing, and back at Mt. Bachelor, the original and best home of the America’s Best Bootfitters boot test.

Considering all your boot choices can seem a bit of a blur, but our advanced boot searching algorithm lets you narrow the field of options by any or all of these filters: audience, test category, brand, boot type, hike modality and last width! Start your search by selecting Reviews/Boot Reviews from the menu above, then select your FILTER parameters and hit UPDATE RESULTS. Happy hunting, and remember that this is just a start—finalize your search by trying on the boots that make your short list at an America's Best Bootfitters member shop! Read on for our tips on how to find your best match….

We start the boot test process in early winter by working with our brand partners to determine which boots will be tested in each of five categories: Frontside, All-Mountain Traditional, All-Mountain Walk, All-Mountain Freeride and Backcountry. Virtually every boot brand participates in our boot test as it remains the only one like it, worldwide. Our test team is comprised of a core group of Masterfit University instructors, MFU trained bootfitters and boot sellers who know boots inside and out (and who also are good skiers and have been testing boots for many years). We also invite ski industry professionals like coaches, instructors, patrollers, rental technicians and resort administrative staff to test boots.

For our boot test team the last few boot tests have felt a little like watching Formula One and seeing certain brands trade off for the lead in terms of most high scoring boots entered in a given test. This year the Red Bull and Mercedes rivalry was paralleled by Tecnica and Lange, with each brand edging each other for the top position on several category podiums by mere hundredths. When it was all said and done, the Constructors Championship went to Tecnica by the smallest of margins. Head was on the podium with them as just reward for its best boot line intro in years.

The first step in your ultimate boot search is to know thyself! How and where do you want to ski? Are you groomer-centric or an off-piste munk junkie? Are you a human-powered ascent machine or a burger-loving fan of the chairlift and apres cocktails? Answers to these questions will guide you toward one of our five Boot Test Categories: Frontside, All-Mountain Traditional, All-Mountain Walk, All-Mountain Freeride and Backcountry. Once you're there, your search is fine-tuned by matching your foot shape to a boot's Last Width (some categories have more options there) and addressing your performance needs by choosing the appropriate Flex Index (see our reviews Detailed Specs to find softer versions of the models we tested).

What we learned last year is that skiing sure is fun! Nothing like a pandemic-driven lockdown of society to make you re-appreciate sliding down a snow-covered hill, huh? Okay, so everybody else had the same idea and the mountain commutes and lift lines got a little crazy, and masks over noses and goggle fogging is a thing, yeah we know. But what we really learned was that long lift lines and fewer warm-up options are a heck of a lot more fun when your boots are warm and comfy! An ABB bootfitter near you can help with that...