I've been riding my Northwave boots for about six seasons now, and
they've about had it. No matter how tight I lace them, my heel still
lifts up. I'd love to hear from riders who have found a good boot that
keeps your heels down. Or if you've a good trick for old boots, let me
know.

Like Bob said, footbeds can do wonders for eliminating heel lift - I have a
set of footbeds that goes in both my soft boots and my hard boots and I
would never ride either without them again.

My 01/02 Salomon Malamutes were the best I've had in terms of little heel
lift right out of the box - but that was more a function of the heel strap
inside the boot than anything else. And if I cranked the hgeel strap too
tight it cut off my circulation and screwed up the boot's flex.

Fit is everything so find out what fits you the best. My experience is
that a good pair of soft boots lasts me about 80 - 100 days before it
performance starts to degrade due to the shell getting softened past the
point of just being "broken in". I'm 195 pounds and rough on my gear so
you may get a little more than that.

I will never ride without my own footbeds again though, and would recommend
looking into it for anyone who has a decent fit but wants to get a great
fit. I thought my soft boot fit was good enough until I found that my hard
boots were *way* more comfy, and this prompted me to tweak the soft boots
some. Now the hard boots are still more comfy but only slightly so.

Mike T

P.S. IMHO hard boots are inherently easier to tweak so that explains why I
can't get my soft boots tuned quite as well!