The Dynafit Vulcan at evo.com.

The rumours of the Dynafit Vulcan's demise are grossly exaggerated so those of us with wide flat feet who love the feel and fit of the Vulcan need fear no more. Some rumours had been going around that this was to be the Vulcan's last year. Salewa North America (Dynafit's North American distributor) reached out and were only to happy to dispel those rumours.

Already reviewed as a Teton Tested product (in the 2014/15 version), the Vulcan is known to epitomize the best of alpine touring boot technology, combining remarkable stiffness with insane touring range of motion. This season's version of the Vulcan varies little from the older review. The most noticeable change is the colour (green on green) and the replacement of the carbon cuff with a fiberglass reinforced cuff. The new fiberglass cuff is supposed to make the Vulcan ski in a more more progressive fashion (i.e. with smoother flex) yet lose very little in the way of stiffness (anecdotally, it's only 5% less stiff).

When it was first rumored that the Vulcan would be discontinued in the next season, there were countless wails of despair and a run on Vulcans as many stocked up. I know, as I was one of them.

Vulcan fans can continue to jump for joy next season. Jamie Starr photo.

I have also reviewed Dynafit's new Khion boots. Relieved at the news that the Vulcan was going to live on, I took the opportunity to ask Salewa how they thought the Khion was distinguished from the Vulcan. Some context and additional colour for their responses can be drawn from various strange looking graphs in the Khion and Vulcan profiles in the Dynafit website where the Khion is described as 50/50 Free Touring/Ski Touring while Vulcan is 40/60 Free Touring/Ski Touring. Decoding these graphs this means that Dynafit views the Khion is ever so slightly more downhill-biased than the Vulcan.

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Essentially Dynafit looked at its boot lineup and decided there was room for both the Khion and Vulcan at the top of the stiffness heap. So many people loved the fit and design philosophy of the Vulcan. Yet there's apparently also a strong reception for the performance of Khion.

Dynafit views the Vulcan as the boot with the best stiffness-to-tourability tradeoff on the market. It can drive big stiff skis yet offer astounding tourability performance via its ginormous range of motion. With its customizability via removable tongues, Vulcan appealed to those who liked to fiddle with their boots as well. Dynafit looks at the Khion (soon to be renamed the FT1) as appeallng more to those who come from the alpine side of the sport, with the boot being optimized for a progressive flex and an anatomical last. Finally, with its cleaner profile with buckles pulled up and out of the way, the Khion sells better to those who still had trouble wrapping their heads around the look of the Vulcan and the Lean-Lock buckle system.

Additional must-read links for touring boot buyers:

Dynafit Khion Discussion thread in the TGR Forums

Dynafit Vulcan Discussion thread in the TGR Forums

A Guide to Buying Touring Boots

A Complete Guide to Touring Boot flexes

About The Author

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stash member Lee Lau

Professional Recreationalist. I ski mainly in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia in the Whistler/Pemberton area. I often travel to the Selkirks, the Monashees and to other touring destinations. http://instagram.com/sharon_and_lee