About 30 years ago a strange boot design appeared on the slopes. The tight ski pants of the day meant that the new boots were hard to hide, today they would be invisible under a cuff and nobody would know you were wearing the latest high-top model.

Several companies produced high-top ski boots including Dolomite, Nordica, Alpina and Trappeur. The Dolomite ad from 1981 goes into great detail explaining the logic behind their “Secret Weapon Design.”

According to Dolomite, the primary advantages of their design was increased leverage due to the high cuff and greater comfort due to more area on the shin. Dolomite thought higher boots were “here to stay” but unfortunately their time in the sun was very short and in the space of a few years high-top boots could only be found at the best garage sales.

On a personal note, I spent one day testing a pair of Secret Weapons. They felt so good I’ve been scouring garage sales every since. No kidding.

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