When Liquid Force sent me a pair of closed-toe Watson boots, I immediately thought that they looked just like snowboard boots. The construction and feel of the closed-toe boots was so similar to snowboard boots that I was interested how they would perform on frozen, rather than glassy, water. Would the boots even fit in my snowboard bindings? Would they fall apart from the abuse? Or would the boots make me shred the snow like Watson tears up the water?
As spring approached I began the snow test in my backyard snowpark. After taking the boots off my board and unscrewing the base plates, I put on my best snowboard socks and the Watsons. The boots were undoubtedly comfortable and they fit surprisingly well in my snowboard bindings. I jumped into the backyard drop-in and pumped over the hip and hit our mini-wallride. The boots worked unexpectedly well. They were supportive and didn’t feel too much different from my brand new Burtons. I continued to session the wallride a bit and decided that the boots had passed only their first test. The genuine test would be up on the mountain.  

Several days later I headed over to Heavenly with my Watson boots ready for everything the mountain could throw at them. This time I was actually worried that the boots might get destroyed from this experiment. The mountain had a few variables not present in the backyard: the rough parking lot asphalt, grated metal steps, muddy slush and skating around the flats were all possible points of boot destruction. On the mountain, the Watsons surpassed my expectations.  Bombing hills at full speed was a little scary at first because they were a little softer than my ordinary boots, but after a few runs I was feeling pretty good. Gaining some confidence, I moved over to the park and hit up some boxes, wallrides, and jumps. Method grabs felt just like wakeboarding and made me think of warm water and lofty wakes. Although I was stoked to be out on the snow shredding in my Watsons, I couldn’t stop thinking about the upcoming wakeboard season and getting back out on the water.