Salewa's new hiking boot features thermoplastic composites

Salewa’s (Bolzano, Italy) new ultralight, crampon-compatible mountain boot, the Ortles Couloir, weighs in at only 725 grams. The boot is named after the Ortles Mountain, the highest peak of the Rhaetian Alps.

Salewa’s Ortles Couloir will be available in stores beginning in fall 2021. The boot includes thermoplastic composites from Xenia Materials (Mussolente, Italy). According to Salewa, the toecap is produced on a polymeric base reinforced with carbon fiber. This carbon solution was designed to offer and guarantee both stiffness and flexibility.

Salewa says the processing of last generation’s carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites and the injection molding process enable the standardization and realization of structures with improved and optimized thickness, which would otherwise be expensive and difficult to achieve through the traditional lamination process.

The Ortles Couloir’s compact and solid design, characterized by its narrow toe area, reportedly provides more precision while climbing both rock and ice. The boot’s carbon fiber frame offers both lightness and stiffness, and Salewa says its hinged joint closure ensures greater comfort while walking and more grip while climbing.

Enrico Mancinetti, Xenia Materials’ sales manager, says, “Working with Salewa and its partners has represented a great and exciting challenge. We began by developing a specific customization process, which led to the selection of the polymer and a well-defined percentage of carbon fiber.”