Howdy, everybody?

Welcome back to another episode of Gear 30 on the Blister Podcast Network.

My name is Luke Kappa.

I am the managing editor at Blister,

and I'm coming to you from our home base in Elevation Hotel in Preston, Colorado.

As always, you can check out everything we are doing and reviewing at blisterreview.com.

In today's conversation, we are diving into a whole bunch of aspects of boot fitting,

ski boot design, and the trends we're noticing in all of these worlds.

Joining me are Jonathan Ellsworth and one of our good friends, Hunter Dagnan, who has decades

of both boot fitting and boot selling experience.

On that note, one of our first topics is the difference between the two, fitting boots

versus selling them and how the best selling boots have

evolved and shifted lately. We also get Hunter's thoughts on how to get an idea of whether when

you're headed into a new shop, whether you're working with a great boot fitter, or whether you may

want to look elsewhere. He provides some super straightforward and

practical red flags and green flags to be aware of. Then, of course, we have to talk about Boa,

but Hunter raises some points about Boa's impact on ski boots that I hadn't thought about,

including what sorts of boots and people and feet types and

leg types he thinks are best suited for lower boa boots, upper boa boots, and double boa options.

And finally, we get to some very big and potentially controversial questions, like,

are the fits of ski boots changing across

categories? Maybe even across the whole industry? Are low volume boots getting less low volume?

...