Runners who run for sport alone have a preference for the boots known in the trade under the name of laupar boots. They are thick-soled, flat-heeled, box-shaped above the toes. The Lotus boots, made on an American shape, are a good type also. But are they good Alpine boots?
Runners in the Alps for whom ski are a means to an end, as well as an object in itself, generally wear an ordinary mountaineering boot of a large size, carefully nailed on heel and sole. This for two reasons:—
First, there is frequently some distance to be travelled over, in order to get across the rough, broken, or wooded ground before reaching the high snow-fields.
Second, it is practically impossible to dispense with nails in one’s boots when crossing, above the snow-line, rocks and icy patches. On these ski are useless. They have to be carried for awhile or left behind, till called for. The runner is then thrown upon his boots and climbing-irons. Should his boots be laupars, the climbing-irons have to be fitted on to the bare soles. This is an inconvenient process, partly because the bands are liable to freeze, partly because it may take more time to don and doff the irons than the emergency will be kind enough to allow.
Those who speak of injury done to ski-blades by boot-nails carry too far their sympathy for an excellent servant. In point of fact, a symmetrically and regularly nailed boot makes upon the ski-blade and plate a harmless impression. The lodgement of each nail-head is clean. It even affords an additional support when turning, or breaking, or swinging.
The characteristics of a good running boot are, as one sees, few and definite.
With ski bindings, or fastenings, the matter is altogether different.
The popularity of ski-running burst forth so suddenly upon the sporting world that the invention of new bindings—of which there is no end—soon proceeded even beyond the boundaries of common sense and reason.
The original Scandinavian and Lap bindings, with bent twigs, twisted cane, or long thong, were quite sufficient for their purpose and in their place.
Of the new bindings a large number are of a commercial character only. Others, brought out on the score of mechanical perfection, come forward with purely academical credentials.