The simple glory of the Alpine Boothorn.
Life changing? Life affirming? Bold questions, indeed. The Alpine Boot Horn may have some answers for you: some more practical, some more existential. The Alpine Boot Horn may be the answer to your tough-to-get-into boots. For the low low price of….$11.95.
Late last Fall I had the poor fortune of herniating a disc in my 36-year-old back. One week, I was running, biking, grappling, and lifting heavy things, and the next I developed shooting pain down my leg and foot drop. If you’ve never suddenly discovered that you have a floppy foot, it’s a real eye-opener. Fast forward one spine surgery and two months lifting nothing heavier than a gallon of milk and I was tentatively released to go ski again.
I eagerly tossed my skimo boots and skis into my car and headed up to the mountains, planning on just having a sanity-improving walkabout to test how my muscles were faring. You see, when my disc went splat it pushed on my left fifth lumbar nerve root, and in just a few weeks several muscles in my left leg largely walked off the job. Following surgery, they had woken some, but it was slow going getting them back on line.
I popped the back of my SUV, slid off my Boggs, and stuffed my right foot into my Scarpa Alien 1.0s. Then I tried my left foot. Ten minutes later, I almost left the parking lot for home. I discovered something interesting in that moment: the muscle (tibialis anterior) that helps you pull your foot up towards your shin (dorsiflexion) is actually pretty critical for getting into a tight ski boot. As my 3-year-old will tell you, you can’t just stuff a limp foot into a ski boot and get good results. After an agonizingly long time leaning on my foot and wiggling my toes, I finally got in, but I was left looking for a better way.
I went first where any unthinking American would: Amazon. I bought the longest and stiffest looking metal shoe horn that I could find. It came in a pack of two and my son immediately recognized them as swords. Unfortunately, they worked poorly in ski boots. The fit of a ski boot is just too tight, so a thin strip of metal does too little. Plus, sliding your heel roughly off the bottom of a metal edge feels terrible.
I gave up looking for a while until I found myself browsing the randoms section of Tognar Toolworks, a great source for ski tuning and boot fitting tools and supplies. There it was: The Alpine Boot Horn. Could it be? Time would tell.
For $11.95 I soon had this elegant piece of engineering in my hands. This thing is everything that I love about an invention; someone had a problem, solved it for themselves in an effective and elegant manner, and now they sell it for profit. America at its best.
It’s function is simple. It slides into the calf of the boot and creates a beautiful chute for not just your heel but a good half of the circumference of the foot and ankle.
Insert to line, take pleasure in life.
Slick plastic glory—no longer a suffer fest.
How well does it work? Well, it singlehandedly fixed my ability to get into my ski boots without a wrestling match. Do you need one? Probably not. Should you try one? Probably so. My strength is now 90% recovered in my tibialis and other muscles, and I can get in without the boot horn, but I don’t want to. This little piece “moldable duraslip technology” gives me a small enjoyment every time I put on my most pain in the ass boots.
Sink the heel, pull the ripcord.
While basically nobody is going to have a hard time getting their foot in a Hojilock boot that basically explodes apart before it’s buckled, the Alpine Boothorn makes my Skorpius, Alien 1.0s, and K2 Alpine boots a breeze. Consider tipping your hat to this inventor if you struggle with getting into your boots, or if you have back problems, flexibility issues, or other penalties for wisdom that make it harder to stoop down and cram your foot in the boot. You’ll thank the genius that first used a National Geographic to don his boots and realized that he was sitting on a plastic gold mine.
Simple and effective. It also works well to don your boots racer-style (or Zipfit style) with the liner on your foot. Be careful how much you let it slide into the boot because I did manage to rip the grommet out of mine trying to remove it.
So good! I cannot get into my Skorpius without this, and now I know why my right foot is harder to get into the boot than my left. It’s so small and light you can bring it along for hut trips and spring tours when you may need to take your boots off for a creek crossing.