Salomon Malamute Snowboard Boot Review

Hello and welcome to my Salomon Malamute snowboard boot review.

In this review I will take a look at the Malamute as freeride snowboard boots.

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Malamute a score out of 100 (based on several factors) and see how they compare with other freeride boots.

Overall Rating

Boots: Salomon Malamute

Price: $449 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride 

Flex Rating: Stiff

Flex Feel: Stiff (8.5/10)

Rating Score: 83.5/100

Compared to other Freeride Boots

Overview of the Malamute’ Specs

Check out the tables for the Malamute' specs.

Specs

Sizes

Who are the Malamute Most Suited to?

The Malamute are best suited to riders with narrow to mid-narrow feet who like to bomb and carve and need their boots to be good and supportive and able to handle being pushed to the limits. 

Not for beginners - way too stiff for that, IMO. And not for most intermediate riders, unless your particularly strong/athletic or a bigger rider. 

Best matched to boards in the 6/10 to 9/10 flex range, and even better suited to boards in the 7.5/10 to 8.5/10 range, IMO. 

The Malamute in More Detail

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Malamuteare capable of.

Demo Info

Boots: DC Malamute 2025

Size: 10 (US Men's Sizing)

Date: January 15, 2025

Entry/Exit

I found it really easy to get my feet into the Malamutes. So easy, I was concerned they may be a bit big - and when my feet were in it did feel a little on the loose side initially, without any tightening.

Liner

The liner is tightened with a typical lacing harness. A pretty cheap looking/feeling toggle thing to tighten it with. Heel hold with just the liner lacing harness done up was not good at all. Much more heel lift than my control boots with just their liner tightened.

There isn’t any Velcro or any kind of strap for top of liner and it’s feeling pretty loose at top of liner around shins as well. Around the ankles also felt loose with just the liner tightened too. To try to improve that heel hold/ankle looseness/shin looseness I went back  and got things as tight as possible. Re-tightening that much left a minor hotspot on my lower shin, just where it connects with ankle.

Shell

The shell has this kind of half speed lace/ half traditional lace thing going on. The laces feel like speed lace material, and there’s the toggle puller like speed lace – so just the one end. But there are eyelets that the laces can come out of for the top section of the boot. There’s only one puller (unlike most speed lace that has one for lower section, one for upper) but you can set the lower section first (it locks in down there), before starting to get the upper section behind the eyelets – so you can adjust them separately, just works a little differently. Then you lock the laces into a clip that’s on the tongue of the boot. More like Nitro/Ride’s liner lacing system with the clip, than typical speed lace. But it’s good in the sense you can lock it in there and pull tight, then let go and it holds it in place, then pull tight again, etc until you have it to your desired tightness.

Even after giving it a good few tightens, like I did on the liner lacing, it still feels pretty loose around the ankles and still a lot of heel lift. I did leave the lower section fairly loose, so I could test independence/adjustabiliilty of tightening. 

After re-tightening lower section it improved the looseness a bit but still more heel lift than I’d like and def still more than my control boots. And that created a bit of a hotspot on the ankle, with very minimal heel hold improvement.

Like with speed lace there’s the thing you’ve got to wrap the excess lace around and tuck in the side. Which is an extra step. And you want to take your time and do it right or else it comes out as your riding and can be a pain if you don’t get it right in there. There’s only 1 to do compared to to the usual speed lace, so that at least makes it quicker. 

J Bars

This was all before I discovered that there were J-Bars in the box. After putting in the j bars, heel hold was miles better. Like went from being noticeably worse than my control boots to being a touch better. Minimal heel lift overall after putting J-Bars in. Made a massive difference. Just wish they’d have pockets for them. 

Foot to Boot Fit

Length Fit: 

My toes weren't quite reaching the ends of the boots, which made me think, along with the looseness, as described above, that the 9.5 would be better. That was before the J-bars, but they of course didn't make the length fit better. 

The tops of my toes had plenty of wiggle room - which I like. 

Width: 

My forefeet weren't able to move side to side at all and I I could feel my inner forefoot just touching the side. It wasn't uncomfortable and didn't feel like my forefoot was being squeezed or anything,  but more narrow than typical. My pinky toe was also noticeable touching, but again not squished, the sides too and my big toe pushed into my 2nd toe. So I’d call them a narrow fit, but worked fine for my average width feet. Going to 9.5 though would potentially make them uncomfortably narrow, though. 

Top of Foot (Instep):

There was some pressure there after re-tightening the lower section, but it wasn'y anything major or too uncomfortable.

Around Ankles: 

Despite it overall feeling loose around the ankle/heels, there is some pressure on top part of inner ankle bone.

On Snow: They overall felt very similar to when I first tried them on, which is typical. I would say any instep pressure was gone very quickly and the inner ankle pressure was even more minimal. They still overall felt a bit loose but the J-Bars did make big difference for fit for me, particularly for heel hold.

True to Size?: I feel like the 9.5 would be better length-wise. But I’d be concerned that it would get too narrow for my fore-feet and toes. But would likely be better for heel hold. It's like they're narrow at the front end of the boot but wide around the ankles - which makes the J-Bars kind of necessary - though those with big ankles may not need them. So, I'd say it runs half a size big, but to downsize by half a size from your normal size you might need to have feet narrower than average. 

Boot to Binding Fit

Heel width: They fit into the heelcup of my control bindings no issues, without any squeeze and there’s a little bit of room there. Not quite as much room as my control boots, but plenty that there's no effort needed to get them to the back of the heel cup. 

Toe width: Lots of space here. More space than my control boots. This isn't too surprising, given how they feel narrow on the inside at the toe end. 

Ankle Strap: To fit optimally and the same as my control boots, I had to lengthen the ankle straps by 2 holes.

Toe Strap: Again needed to lengthen by 2 holes – which was at the longest point the toe strap could go. So these just fit in Medium Burton Malavitas. You could have the toe strap 1 hole shorter and it would work, but the most optimal fit was at it's longest point. 

Carving and Slow Speed Response

As you'd expect with stiffer boots like these, they performed better for carving than my control boots and not as well for slow speed turns (my control boots have a 6/10 flex). 

So, what you'd expect there, but not quite as good for hard charging carves as I would have expected, given their flex, and I think part of that was down to fit. I think in the 9.5s they would have been done a little better - and maybe have been a little better for slow speed turning too. 

I found that it wasn't as good as the Thraxis or Phantom, which I also tested that day, for carving - and while I did prefer them for slow speed riding over the Thraxis, I preferred the Phantom over these for slow speed.  

Heel Hold

When I first tried these on, I thought they were going to be a nightmare for heel lift. Thankfully, I found J-Bars in the box. After inserting them, I thought they were going to have high-end heel hold. In the end, they settled into having good heel hold, without being amazing. I suspect the 9.5 would be really good with the J-Bars, but my guess is that the front end of the boot would be too narrow for me in a 9.5. 

Adjustability

They have good overall adjustability. You can tighten the lower and upper sections independently, which is good. 

You need to open up the shell to re-tighten the liner, if needed (which is often the case, I find, early in a boots life), so there's no way to do that easily without opening the shell, but that's certainly not a deal-breaker, at least not for me. 

Also not a deal-breaker, but something that I like that it didn't have, that a lot of boots have these days, is Velcro at the top of the liner to help in getting a more secure/cloes liner to shin fit.  

But what it did have that really helped, and in this case was necessary for me, was J-Bars. Yes, you could get these aftermarket, but it's nice having them come in the box, so you don't have to make a separate purchase and the time and effort involved in having to do that. 

Comfort

I found these boots nice and comfortable. Unfortunately I think that comfort, to some extent, came at the cost of some performance. But purely focusing on comfort, they weren't pressure point free, but what was there was minor and were fading as I rode in them and I didn't notice that unless I was focusing on it. I could have ridden in these all day and night right out of the box with them. 

Shock Absorption

Stomp Test: I found them to not absorb shock during the in-house stomp test as well as my control boots. Not that far off, but not quite as well. 

On-Snow: On snow I found them to be a little less shock/chatter absorbing versus my control boots and vs the Thraxis and particularly the Phantom. 

Traction/Sole Quality

The soles felt like they were rubber all over and seemed to be nice and grippy. Fairly minimal pattern variety and fairly minimal in terms of overall studs. Tread depth was average. Overall they seemed like good quality soles. 

Reduced Footprint

They weren't overly long or bulky but also not a super low profile. Right around average. If I could get in the 9.5, then that would mean lower profile than the average size 10 that I usually fit in, and while I think I could go 9.5 length-wise, I don't think I could width-wise. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

If I had narrower feet and could comfortably go down a 1/2 size, I think these boots would feel significantly better. I'm pretty skeptical that I would find the 9.5 comfortable enough though, so these should work well for some riders, but didn't have the fit, for me, that would enable the kind of performance I would want from a stiffer boot like this, while still maintaining enough comfort. 

As it was, they were really comfortable boots and I liked them and they had good carving performance, I just felt like if I was going to go this stiff, I'd want a little better, if I'm going to be sacrificing other things like slow speed response and board feel.