Whoops forgot to mention.....if you have a wide foot they may be uncomfortable. Apparently wide feet people find them a little uncomfortable as Asolo cater for the average or medium foot! Otherwise, they will keep your feet and toes toasty warm in VERY cold temperatures.

Granted, they are a little pricey but it beats spending large amounts of cash on expedition boots:-) and it would be a wise purchase as they will last you for a long time so you can do many other climbs in them!

hope this helps

JackCarr wrote:Not that I've been to the North Col, or anywhere near that high in fact, but I'd get La Sportiva Spantiks. They should be warm enough and if you ever plan on climing 5k-7k mountains again, or lower altitudes at winter, they'll do it.

Unless you've got a lot of money, don't buy gear for one trip. Buy the best you can afford and have future trips in mind. Chances are you'll be bitten by the bug and want to go climbing again!

JackCarr,

I know about the bug! 8 years ago I decided to go skydiving because i was bored. now I have a thousand jumps and a hole in the budget

But to be honest, i think this trip would be a one kind of a thing for me. I'm getting married in September and the only way I was allowed to go to North Col by myself (she wanted to go too, but that's a huge strain on future family budget) was if i cut her a deal.

The deal was - I stop jumping (she like the fact that i jump but it worries her a lot) and I knock her up before I go to north col. So this way she'd be ok with me going

But I know about the bug and I now it's a real possibility, but for now I'm going to stick to the belief that this is trip is it.

So hence the dilemma - I don't want to spend a fortune on a single trip and especially on gear that I need for a single day, but still i want to make sure it's sufficient and safe.

Ozclimb,

I'm a skinny dude, so i don't have wide feet - should be ok.

I'm going to try some boots this sunday - hopefully it will help me a bit or maybe generate more questions!

This forum has been very helpful and I'm glad being very green here is tolerated:)

Trips and expeditions have plenty of ways of saving money - cutting corners on certain parts of your gear/clothing that you have etc. However, one thing I absolutely refuse to compromise on, regardless of price is hand/finger protection and toe/foot protection. To me, I'll drop half my paycheck on Spantiks/Olympus Mons if it meant the difference between spending the rest of my life with or without toes. To me, even if I only used the big bad expedition boots once, they'd be worth it, plus, they're easy to resell, they are expensive so there's a huge used boot market for "next to new" boots.

Another thing about this site: you can sell off your old gear when you're sure you don't need it anymore! I've had nothing but positive experiences doing so, so far - both buying and selling.

All that said, never been to extreme 8000m altitude myself, but when and if I do go and get up there, I won't be trying to save money on the footwear or handwear. Parts of my anatomy that I'd rather keep. Granted, you could have a million dollars worth of equipment on as well and still get frostbite. Just be careful and listen to you body as well. If you get cold feet, let your guides know! Being a "man" means nothing when you get back to camp and realize that you've got severe frostbite.

And with all that said, good luck on your trip and have fun!

And how could you give up diving? I've gone once and I HAVE to go again.

MScholes wrote:And how could you give up diving? I've gone once and I HAVE to go again.

well, to be honest, it's getting old i have a big competitive side on me and shortly after i started skydiving i was thinking about getting a team and start competing. but skydiving is expensive and it requires a lot of dedication and time. so i could not find a group of people who would be as driven as me and i kinda abandoned that idea.

so after a while jumping for fun got a little bit boring. so i needed to push it. i didn't want to go base jumping , since chances of dying are high, knowing myself i knew i would push it too much and results would be bad.

so i picked another discipline - speed skydiving, which is individual discipline. it's basically going as fast as you can and trying to show the shortest time / highest average speed over a vertical kilometer. while regular skydiving speeds are in 120-180 mph range, for speed skydiving speeds over 300 mph are regular. my max was in 320 range

i competed 3 or 4 years and traveled a lot for competitions. but all the competitions of this kind being in Europe was a lot of hassle. after tearing my ACL during skiing accident and jumping without the ACL for 2 years until i had surgery i got out of the competition and became a weekend fun jumper again. so i never got back into it the way i was.

but my taste for altitude is still within me and Everest was my dream for a longest time. after some high altitude jumps (21k+) i became somewhat obsessed with it. being honest with myself i understand that i'm not a climber and actual Everest climb is beyond my reach. but North Col seems like a good alternative to fulfill my ambitions and long time dream. so here i am

MScholes wrote:However, one thing I absolutely refuse to compromise on, regardless of price is hand/finger protection and toe/foot protection. To me, I'll drop half my paycheck on Spantiks/Olympus Mons if it meant the difference between spending the rest of my life with or without toes.

So true. I dunno how much Spantiks are, $500? Look at it this way, $50 per toe. If you don't think your toes are worth that by all means go cheaper!

Diver, check your inbox.

well, today i went to REI and tried Asolo AFS 8000:



size 10.5 was just right and i though i need 11. they didn't have those in 11 and i tried
Asolo AFS Evoluzione:



i don't really have anything to compare them to, but i found them to be very comfortable and
fitting. i didn't notice much difference between Evo and 8000 but it seems that the inner
boot of Evo is lighter and 8000 would be warmer/more hard core

do plastic boots have any break-in period? with a rigid outer shell and soft inner one it seems that they will fit pretty consistently right away. how risky is to try to find the right
fit here and after knowing what fits me getting the boots in Kathmandu? As I mentioned
before I need plastic boots for 1 day, 2 days tops out of the entire expedition. Would ii
make sense to try to get them there?

When you try them on, bring your thick/heavy socks that you'd be wearing in the boots when actually using them on Everest. Normal street socks will give you a false sense of fit.

Your foot will swell slightly at altitude, and the thick socks should have you upsize by at least .5 of a size. Realize that you want lots of toe room as when descending, you don't want the toes sliding to the front of the boot and becoming unbareable.

i had sock liners and heavy wool socks when i tried them. also inner boot itself expands at the high altitude, so i tried to keep that all in mind as well.

The 8000's are sweet as and look cool. From memory when i researched into buying mine the 8000 was warmer and had a more rigid base i think. They are a seriously competitive boot. But I am a bit biased as i have these and two asolo hiking boots:-)

these will seriously be sufficient, coupled with some really good warm socks....i.e Mund Everest sock (bright orange!!!) or Bridgedales warmest sock etc etc.


cheers

andy

ps let us know how it goes!

well, my original post was almost a year ago to date. i did go for the north col and just came back from my expedition. it was a month of fun and a month of misery but i'm glad that i went and mange to accomplish the climb. i think i satisfied my mountain urge for a while now

here are some pics.













thanks to everyone for the their advices and the help!

Hi, awesome pics! Looks like you had a lot of fun. Your gear seems light compared to what the 2 guys with the down suits had jajaja (in one of your photos), they didnt seem to be having to much fun in them. The weather looked absolutely perfect even up to the summit! amazing.

sneakyracer wrote:Hi, awesome pics! Looks like you had a lot of fun. Your gear seems light compared to what the 2 guys with the down suits had jajaja (in one of your photos), they didnt seem to be having to much fun in them. The weather looked absolutely perfect even up to the summit! amazing.

those guys were going down either from the summit or from some of the higher camps. lots of people going down on the north col headwall had their down suits around their waists. the weather was real nice - may 17 and 18 were perfect. on 17th Chinese team went for a summit and the reached it.

i was wearing technical fleece jacket on the way up and a simple NF hardshell on the way down - we couldn't asked for better weather.