La Sportiva Eiger Supergaiter

I have owned these gaiters for over five years and used them on a variety of snow hiking, alpine, and vertical ice climbing trips. The fit of these over my size 47.5 La Sportiva K2 boots was very difficult as it was the upper end of the size range for these gaiters to fit. Once on, I tend to leave them attached to the boots.

The XSV rubber stirrup has on a few occasions gotten snow buildup underneath it, causing some dangerous snowballing when worn without crampons. The fit of my Grivel and BD crampons with these gaiters was fair-good requiring a little bit of adjustment to be made to the crampons for a solid fit. The uppers are not really that breathable and I tend to sweat a bit in them (a little more than with some OR Crocs or similiar) but have been quite durable in dealing with some errant foot placement and crampon gouges. They have been patched twice successfully in the Cordura and the XSV rubber still seems pliable.

My K2's are the older model without the rubber cap on the toe which caused the gaiter to slip up over the toe when used without crampons. Sportiva's brilliant solution, put Barge cement or ShoeGoo on the toe to increase the rand's gripping power...I already thought of this, not such a smooth solution but it does work.

I would recommend these for use on shorter trips and vertical ice climbing. As for alpine use, you might look at other options for more comfort. Zipper and Velcro still work great as well as the collar cinchcord.