Black Diamond & Scarpa Boots End Relationship

As of January 1, 2006 Black Diamond officially cut off its 18 year tie to Scarpa, a partnership that brought many developments in the world of Telemark and AT ski boots. With this split, Scarpa will move on to become a separate entity in the US and Black Diamond has announced that they have begun R&D; on their own Telemark and Alpine Touring boots to be shown for the first time at the Winter OR show in 2007.

Peter Metcalf, CEO of Black Diamond has put together a design team that will ensure that these new boots are created in a way that will impact the freeheel world in a great way. This team includes several backgrounds in boot manufacturing and development, including people that have worked on projects with Rome Snowboards, Nike, Porsche, & Roces Speed Skates. This is quite a diverse and impressive group considering that these are all highly successful companies and will definitely offer great amounts of knowledge to this undertaking.

Metcalf explains, “this is a huge investment for BD, but one that we are excited to make because we see opportunity to raise the bar in terms of product and the performance it delivers. BD is the only player in the tele/AT boot market with designers who are an integral and organic part of the backcountry ski community, dawn patrolling each day before work. Such levels of intimacy and passion are terrific sources of creativity and inspiration. You can feel the energy level of this project radiating through all parts of BD."

For years the Boot world has been dominated by the 3 major companies of Scarpa, Crispi, & Garmont. The introduction of another boot is sure to help everyone be on their toes in the R&D; departments. In addition to all of this the New Telemark Norm of bindings is sure to affect the process of boot making in the coming years.
Contributd by Josh Madsen

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