2025 Atomic Backland XTD Carbon 120 Ski Boots Review

The Lowdown

In the 23 years or so that I’ve been ski touring, the range of options for boots has expanded dramatically. My first AT boot was an orange Garmont GSM that weighed about 1700 grams and featured something like an 85 flex – underwhelming both in terms of going uphill AND downhill. I rolled with these and a Silvretta 555 “Easy Go” frame binding, and thought I had hit the pinnacle. Little did I know what the future of ski touring would bring.

I’ve been through a succession of touring boots in the years since, and the progression in terms of power-to-weight ratio and range of motion has been wonderful to witness. There is still – and always will be – a compromise between weight and performance, but the performance gap between alpine boots and touring boots gets narrower every year, and more and more companies are offering sub-1400 gram boots that actually ski pretty damn well. The Atomic Backland XTD Carbon 120 is one of them.

Ride Impressions

Skinning: Basically, two main things define the way a touring boot goes uphill. That’s not counting your fitness level, which trumps all the others. Weight is foremost, and it is what it is. The Atomic Backland XTD Carbon 120 in a 26.5 weighed 1396 grams out of the box, 1375 grams without the factory footbed. With custom Sidas footbed with cork heel stabilizer, it weighed in at 1456 grams – heavier than I’m used to in “full time” touring boots (Backland Carbon, Dalbello Quantum, Scarpa F1 LT) but not outrageous considering the 81 gram footbed. I’m also playing around with an ultra-thin footbed made from discarded OEM footbeds that I’ve molded and lightly posted with cork under the arch, which brings the overall weight down to 1398 grams (the downside is they make an already spacious fit even roomier).

Looking at the bootboard in the Backland XTD, it has quite a depression under the ball of the foot, meaning it’s designed for rolling off the toe without creating pressure under the metatarsal ridge. This seems to add to the comfort while skinning, and should make a significant difference over a long day on the skintrack.

The second major factor is the efficiency of the touring mode. This encompasses several things, mainly cuff range of motion (effective range with the liner and leg in place, not the manufacturer’s 74 degree spec), smoothness of the action (quality of bearings/cuff pivots, lack or presence of things that hinder the movement, ease of getting into and out of touring mode, and more.

The touring mode in the Backland XTD Carbon is nothing short of exemplary. With top buckle undone and power strap loosened, the Backland XTD feels about as mobile as my Salomon trail runners. Even with the top buckle left closed, the boot tours better than most everything else in the class, including some lighter boots. Color me amazed.

There’s a sweet spot for freedom of movement in touring boots, especially when navigating steep and consequential terrain, and “more free” isn’t always better – you may find leaving the top buckle and/or power strap tightened to be ideal in some cases, but rest assured you’ve got one of the best tour modes ever for long and undulating approaches. Efficiency of the touring mode includes how easily the boot transitions between ski and skin modes – those that require a lot of fiddling with buckles and power straps or those with finicky walk mode hardware are more of a pain in the ass and ultimately less fun to use over the course of the day.

Skiing: As with alpine boots, more forward stiffness doesn’t necessarily make a touring boot ski better – smooth progression throughout the flex pattern and predictability under pressure are arguably more important. When you know how your boot will respond under load, you ski better.

Lighter touring boots with no overlap in the construction and an open throat for mobility are notoriously poor on the “predictability” scale in comparison to “hybrid” boots (I’ve used multiple Lange XT3’s, Tecnica Cochise’s, and Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD’s over the seasons). The type of plastic used in the boot is also a factor, with Polyamides being noticeably less “progressive” through the flex pattern than Polyurethane boots, but most of the PU hybrids hover in the low to mid 1800-gram range – great for resort duty and occasional backcountry laps, but heavy for high vert touring days.

The Backland XTD Carbon 120 is a carbon-loaded Polyamide boot (meaning the plastic is reinforced with short strands of carbon fiber) but the feeling of smooth progression through the flex pattern is quite good. Other boots in the category (i.e. the Zero G Tour Pro) are certainly stiffer, but tend to have a “brick wall” sort of character as you flex into them. If you need the stiffness (faster, taller, heavier skiers for instance) that’s one thing, but for driving lighter weight touring skis in the 95mm to 105mm waist range, I would certainly argue that the Backland XTD approach lets you ski more naturally. Whether that’s true for you is a question each skier will have to answer on their own.

The stance of the Backland XTD feels natural to me, which makes sense considering all my other boots are Atomics with a 15 or 16 degree forward lean. By contrast, I’ve used alpine shims in Zero G’s, Langes and Roxas to get the lean where I want, which is an issue since they normally don’t stay put while skinning and you have to take them off and stash them somewhere (this also entails glueing a wide strip of Velcro on the back of the liner to hold the shim). The default forward lean on the Backland XTD is 15 degrees, and you can adjust it to either 13 degrees or 17 degrees by loosening and moving the walk mode lever (as with the Hawx XTD models).

Both of my “winter” touring skis – Blizzard Zero G 105’s in 172 and 180 lengths – seem ideally matched to the weight and power of the Backland XTD Carbon 120, but I’m sure a bigger ski would not be a problem, say in the range of 110-112mm in the waist.

The weight you hate on the uphill translates directly to power on the downhill, and in my opinion the Backland XTD Carbon strikes an excellent balance on this score without really favoring either the uphill or the downhill.
 

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Who Are They For?

These boots are perfect for avid backcountry skiers (or those who already have an alpine boot), especially those with wider and higher volume feet, who log plenty of time in their boots but don’t aspire to freeride tricks or huge airs when they’re outside the area boundary. Both skinning and comfort are exceptional in this boot.