{"id":39188,"date":"2018-10-10T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=39188"},"modified":"2020-05-22T13:05:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:05:05","slug":"this-winters-coolest-new-boot-was-built-by-a-skier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/this-winters-coolest-new-boot-was-built-by-a-skier","title":{"rendered":"This Winter’s Coolest New Boot Was Built by a Skier"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Eric Hjorleifson was growing up in Canmore, Alberta, his parents set an example that would guide his life. Self-made worker bees, Pat and Tom Hjorleifson did everything from road construction to carpentry while raising Eric and his brother, Steve. Eventually they built a series of spec houses before Tom became a stone mason and hired his teenage boys to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents\u2019 message was: You can make your own way in our very fortunate western world here. And if there\u2019s an opportunity or a dream, follow it,\u201d Hjorleifson says. \u201cI think that\u2019s a big part of how my skiing career was shaped.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defining chapter of that career, at least so far, takes place this winter. Hjorleifson, 35, is the subject of a Matchstick Productions biopic\u2014titled \u201cHOJI\u201d after his superhero nickname\u2014premiering Oct. 17 in Boulder, Colorado, and touring across the continent thereafter. In addition, this fall, Dynafit is debuting a revolutionary backcountry ski boot, the\u00a0HOJI Pro Tour<\/a>, which Hjorleifson conceived and designed in association with Dynafit binding inventor Fritz Barthel.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Hjorleifson has been tinkering with gear, from boots to jackets to skis, for years now. (Photo Credit: MSP Films)<\/p><\/div>\n

Much of Hjorleifson\u2019s story is known: He grew up ski racing until he was 16, at which point he shifted to freeriding, influenced by the New Canadian Air Force. Legendary Banff native and backcountry guru Andrew Sheppard mentored him. Hjorleifson migrated to Whistler, B.C., and filmed with Matchstick for 15 years, compiling a reel that provided the action-packed backbone for his biopic.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along that line, fellow Canadian freeride star Rory Bushfield started calling him \u201cHajor,\u201d which morphed to \u201cHoj\u201d and later \u201cHoji.\u201d His talent on airy natural terrain and affinity for avoiding the spotlight created something of a savant\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a good chance the ski world will remember his work on technical products for even longer than his skiing. He\u2019s been tinkering behind the scenes for Arc\u2019teryx, Dynafit and other brands for more than a decade, to much internal acclaim and occasional outside renown. Still, you could call his new Dynafit boot, which allows one to switch between uphill and downhill modes with the flick of a heel switch\u2014no buckle or pant adjustment necessary\u2014his magnum opus. It is a significant leap forward from the Vulcan, which came from Hjorleifson\u2019s \u201cFrankenboot<\/a>,\u201d and is basically the holy grail that modern backcountry skiers have long coveted: a light-and-fast boot that supplies enough power to jump 60-foot cliffs and\u2014the cherry\u2014not force you to bend over between runs to switch between ski and tour mode.<\/p>\n

The concept sounds simple enough, but only after Hjorleifson and Barthel went ski touring at a Dynafit marketing event five years ago did it begin to take shape. They realized they enjoyed each other\u2019s company, and Hjorleifson confided in Barthel, who is known across Europe as a pioneer in technical product design.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what I wanted to do and what I needed to do, but I didn\u2019t know how to achieve that,\u201d Hjorleifson recalls. \u201cOver some skiing together and drinking beers and looking at boots with Fritz, I told him about my idea. Right away he was like, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t we just make what you need? I have a workshop, I can build anything you need or we can go 15 minutes to the village and they can make it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hjorleifson’s skiing has placed him in a special category of mountain mythology. (Photo Credit: MSP Films)<\/p><\/div>\n

Barthel, 58, invited Hjorleifson to his farmhouse in Bad H\u00e4ring, Austria, later that winter, where they spent three weeks designing a prototype in his basement. \u201cHe immediately fell in love with my milling machine,\u201d Barthel laughs, adding that the concept, later named the Hoji Lock System, fascinated him. \u201cI hated this for decades, bending down, always changing into ski mode. You have to pull the pants up and then try to fix that stuff. I said to him, \u2018You want this stuff because of performance reasons; I want this stuff because of laziness reasons.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Introducing the Dynafit HOJI Pro Tour, out this fall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Their work produced a boot for Hjorleifson to test later that winter and into the next, with promising results. Still, a key designer at Dynafit\u2019s production facility in Montebelluna, Italy, didn\u2019t believe in the product\u2014or the idea of an outsider telling him how to design a better boot. Only after that employee left the company did the project move forward. \u201cWe lost two and a half years, but the whole time we were preparing different prototypes,\u201d Barthel says.<\/p>\n

The 120-flex, three-buckle HOJI Pro Tour weighs just\u00a06 pounds, 6.2 ounces and comes in a narrow 101-millimeter last. It won an ISPO award and has been hailed by everyone from fellow freeride pros to Barthel\u2019s skeptical ski-touring partners in Bad H\u00e4ring. The boot represents an anomalous recipe in the technical product realm: a North American freerider opening the eyes of one of the light-and-fast genre\u2019s original gangsters, deep in the Austrian Tyrol.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that he said, \u2018Oh, we have to do this and this,\u2019 proved right,\u201d Barthel says.\u00a0\u201cFor me it was nice to learn something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Hjorleifson, it was the latest example of him finding his own way in life, and following it.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Eric Hjorleifson was growing up in Canmore, Alberta, his parents set an example that would guide his life. Self-made worker bees, Pat and Tom Hjorleifson did everything from road construction to carpentry while raising Eric and his brother, Steve. Eventually they built a series of spec houses before Tom became a stone mason and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":39191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[727,1538,364],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-39188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snowsports","tag-latest-posts","tag-new-products","tag-snowsports","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/this-winters-coolest-new-boot-was-built-by-a-skier","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"This Winter’s Coolest New Boot Was Built by a Skier","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/this-winters-coolest-new-boot-was-built-by-a-skier","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/this-winters-coolest-new-boot-was-built-by-a-skier"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/10\/hoji-summit.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/10\/hoji-summit.jpg?fit=5568%2C3132"},"articleSection":"Snowsports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["latest posts","new products","snowsports"],"dateCreated":"2018-10-10T15:00:38Z","datePublished":"2018-10-10T15:00:38Z","dateModified":"2020-05-22T20:05:05Z"},"rendered":"