Mountaineering Boots: Sportiva Evo Nepal GTX vs Asolo Cholatse

I'm in the market for a pair of mountaineering / ice climbing boots. The Sportiva Evo Nepals seem to be popular with ice climbers, but the Asolo Cholatse are lighter and also get good reviews. Anyone have experience with one or both?

Nathan Scherneck wrote:I'm in the market for a pair of mountaineering / ice climbing boots. The Sportiva Evo Nepals seem to be popular with ice climbers, but the Asolo Cholatse are lighter and also get good reviews. Anyone have experience with one or both?

There are a bunch of models out there in this range - you should really look into many of them because fit is usually the biggest problem across models.

La Sportiva Nepal Evo
La Sportiva Batura 2.0 gtx
Scarpa Mont Blanc
Scarpa Phantom Guide
La Sportiva Baruntse
Salewa Pro Gaiter/Guide

Something worth checking out is the redesign of the Rebel line from Scarpa:

Rebel Ultra GTX and Reble Pro GTX - very intriguing boots - but some have said they are a little narrow so they may not fit my flat feet well.

Usually, La Sportiva vs. Scarpa involves larger or smaller toe box based on the model. So, I'd expand your query just a bit.

A great place to test boots???? Ice festival. If you can get to Ouray or one of the ice festivals, you can climb all day in these boot models and do a round robin test. Otherwise, if you're looking for new I'd consider Backcountry.com with their return policy (in 2013 I purchased 5 pairs and returned 4 of them after testing them out - I settled on the Scarpa Phantom Guide... I've climbed WI5 in them and the Emmons Route on Rainier - so they've done me well).

I can't comment on the Asolo boot. I haven't worn any of their technical boots so I can't tell you how well they perform. I would assume they perform just fine. I've had inconsistent results with them as a hiking boot so I can't tell you whehter the technical boots they provide stack up against Sportiva/Scarpa/Salewa.

Good luck!

By the way, Dane who does the Cold Thistle blog does a lot of review of boots in this category... here's an example: coldthistle.blogspot.com/20…

And the Gear 30 guy did a good comparison between these boots as well.. gearthirty.blogspot.com/201…

Don't forget the Kayland M11's. My little brother wears those and loves them...

Yep!

I did forget the Kayland boots AND the new models being pushed around by LOWA too.

Find what fits!

If I were buying just one pair of boots I'd get the Baturas.

Jim