I’m assuming you skied into the climb in the XC boots then switched to your Evo boots? Are the Evos coMfortable? Was the bruising from the old XC boots? Wouldn’t make sense to ski and climb in the same boots? Then your climbing boots won’t be ice cold when you put them on at the climb. We used to use the old Kandahar cable bindings for skiing into climbs. Then we switched to Ramers in 1976 and later Marker M-tour or Silveretta 404 (all of which had just a wire bail in the front and finally to Fritchi touring bindings. The Evo boots have a front and back welt so any you should be able to to any of the old bail types like the Silveretta or Marker. You can probably make Firtichis work too. I’ve only used them plastic double boots.
If you are determined to use XC ski boots then your old LL Beans and their 3 pin bindings will need to be up graded by about 20 years. There are tons of good medium weight ski touring boots with medium weight toe only bindings. I’m not familiar with the touring models as my experience in the last 30 years has been exclusively with racing boots. A good fit is paramount though.
For less than the upgrade money to newer XC gear you can probably find a used ski mountaineering set up on eBay.
Scott
