Kayland Unisex Hyper Traction Mountaineering Boot

I bought Hypertraction with for winter mountaineering & ice climbing. For these pursuits correct fit is essential as cold feet is the result otherwise. I have a slightly wide foot and my left foot is slightly bigger than my right. When it comes to American shoes, the difference is not noticeable and no additional consideration for fit is necessary. But when it comes to mountaineering boots many Italian welts do not accommodate my width without creating detrimental length. I tried on many boots to find the correct fit and found 2 that suited my purpose and comfortably accommodated my feet. The Kayland Hypertraction and the La Sportiva Nepal EVO GTX are both really excellent boots. Even within the same manufacturer, like La Sportiva or Kayland, some boots fit my feet and others do not. For instance I can wear the La Sportiva Nepal EVO GTX but the La Sportiva Trango S EVO GTX is too narrow. I can wear the Kayland Hypertraction but the Kayland M-11+ is too narrow.The Hypertraction was pricy when it was first released but Kayland has spared no expense when it comes to the material used. Dryver®, eVent®, Primaloft®, Schoeller®, Vibram®, this boot has all of the best materials. The water-tight RIRI Aquazip fastening and Velcro top side seal off the boot interior and make a more comfortable fit at the ankles than any boot I have worn. The E.C.T. Traction multi-layered composite insole makes a great crampon shelf for front pointing. It won the 2010 Guides Choice Award from the American Alpine Institute.I have used the Kayland Hypertraction for 2 winters on Colorado 14er's and ice climbing in Ouray and never had cold feet. I wear a size 9D street shoe and fit comfortably into size 10 Hypertraction, accommodating a thicker mountaineering sock.

Ok I will try to explain the best I can. I bought these boots for my GF [they are unisex] and we used the appropriate sizing chart for a women's fit. The first pair came in at a size US women's 7, she put her foot into the boot and things seemed normal about the size of the foot bed. However, the boot closure system although very well built is really the killer here. There is a partial inner boot that consists of a neoprene boot sewn into the outer leather boot. The enclosure for this is a plastic zipper, as the zipper started to close you could tell [even with a smaller sock] it started to really get tight. Then after zipping it, and really pushing the limits of the zipper strength, the lacing would almost do nothing as this point. So said everything felt fine except the zipper was really busting as the seams. However, further more there is a Velcro flap on the top. This thing has such a small diameter it would not catch and stay Velcro'd. I tried to fit my hand into the boot with the Velcro closed, and I could not get it in. So after much discussion we sent them back and got one full size bigger [Women's 8 US]. The foot bed oddly still felt good, not to big, however again the zipper enclosure was tight, not nearly as tight as the 7's. She laced them up and tried again for the Velcro strap...by simply leaning forward [ski boot lean] the Velcro has such little catch it would just pop open. So my GF is around 115# and 5'3, she is by no means large in anyway. Her calves and shins are normal size for her body and height. The sizing of this boot is strange. If you have extremely slender calves, you might not notice anything. If you have normal or even climbing/hiking calves or going to be eff'd. We decided to keep the boots because of the amazing quality of the boot and amazing Amazon deal. I am going to have her sew on a longer flap of Velcro for the top closure to make that work. I hope as the size gets bigger in the foot bed the calf hole [opening] gets bigger more than proportionally to what I am seeing with size 8 W's... Good luck and as always Amazon is so easy to deal with returns...so go and experiment a bit, but still be careful because they are not hiking boots, the risk is a lot hiring with winter climbing.