Ice 9000

I bought these boots for lower 48 winter climbing trips in Montana.



I found that your correct size will be tight, I went 1/2 size bigger.

loosen your laces for the trek in and they rocker good.

They are a little bulky for tight quarters, but make up for that on snow kicking in steps.

The Stealth soles are great and actually do stick to rock.

My feet have stayed warm down to minus 30 degrees on a cold montana morning.

I would buy them again, but only for mountaineering, not technical climbing.

I used these boots on a mountaineering trip in the Northern Cascades. I wore them on the approach to basecamp, for 5 days during the mountaineering course, and then up to Sahale Peak and back down to the van. I had broken them in by hiking in the winter for 50+ miles; plus I have wide feet so I took them to a ski-boot shop and had the shells stretched. These boots fit very well.



On the approach these boots were extremely clunky. The others in my party wore Scarpa Alphas and they didn't have any trouble. I think since the Ice 9000's come up so high on your leg they really inhibited my walking.



While on the glacier and in the snow my feet stayed warm, too warm. I am a hot bodied person by nature, and these boots are extremely warm. The only time my feet weren't sweating was on summit day. Then they were comfortable. I plan on using these boots on Denali and I think they will work just fine. Not once did my toes feel a bit chilly.



These boots excelled in the snow. I didn't slip at all. Also, I must say the soles stuck real well on cold wet rock. We had to hike across exposed streams high above the treeline and I didn't slip once.



I have a set of Grivel G-12 Newmatic crampons and they attached to the boots with no trouble at all.

These are fantastic mountaineering boots, hands down! I purchased my Ice 9000's in April. 2005, and was impressed with the quality of their construction (and heft!). When I weighed my size 11's they were just under 7 lbs for the pair which is reasonable for this class of footwear.



The rand that Vasque uses fits my feet very well, and these boots are no exception. They fit almost as comfortably as my well worn sundowners right out of the box.



The only trip I've taken the sundowners on so far was my recent jaunt up Shasta's AG route in mid august, 2005. I found that the boots perform reasonably well in the loose scree prevalent on the lower slopes of Shasta in the late summer, and the ankle support was excellent. These boots really excel on snow/ice with crampons on, however. The boots were stiff enough to relieve any fatigue my feet would otherwise feel side-stepping and front pointing up nearly 3,000 vertical feet of sun-cupped hard snow. After the trip the boots showed virtually no wear.



Though the trip up Shasta was not cold (maybe 20's at the coldest), my feet never overheated in the Ice 9000's. I'm looking forward to some winter climbs to test out the cold weather performance of these boots.

I absolutely love these boots. They are comfortable, warm and excel in a variety of terrain. They were warm enough to have left my overboots at home on Denali in June 06. These boots also scramble rock well, and I use them extensively for backcountry snowboarding.

My only issue is that they tend to be hard on laces, but it is not really a big deal.