User Review: Asolo Yukon

I stared out climbing with Galibier 'Puetereys' in the late '70s; when Galibier went out of business I started purchasing Asolo; my first model was the 'Couloir' which I used to climb such things as 'Liberty Ridge' and up to 20,000 feet in South America. When the 'Couloirs' wore out I got a pair of Yukons... I used these guiding in both the Wind Rivers and in the Sierras for a couple of years, and I must admit that they broke in very slowly (a fair amount of heel blisters); clients also had trouble with heel blisters. But this was sort of common back in the days of heavy leather mountain boots... one had to wait for the heels to soften up a bit (my trick was to soak them and then beat the hell out of the heel region with a hammer!). Well, I've had the 'Yukons' resoled once, and now that they are broken in they are super comfortable... I do everything in them from hut to hut trips in the Alps, to moderate snow and ice routes in Peru and Bolivia (up to 21,000 feet with homemade overboots). They are super boots but no longer available. Its getting hard to find Norwegian welt mountain boots; but they are still available if you look a bit on the inter-net.... cobblers prefer to resole them as well.

karl wilcox