Have your feet stopped growing? Are you sure? Normally I think boots are one place that you really need to sink some cash and it's shortsighted to scrimp. But at 16 there's no point in buying a pair of boots that will last ten years if they won't fit in two.

I'd go for a used heavy leather mountaineering boot that fits you well with enough room for a heavy sock. Alternatively, a used pair of plastic double boots if you see yourself in cold weather on technical terrain.

I wear uninsulated leather boots on virtually all single-day trips above 0 F. OK, that's a total lie. The boot I wear most on winter mountaineering trips is a Scarpa AT boot - all the more reason not to sink a ton of money into boots until you have a better sense of your needs. I've never had a problem with the Evos in positive temperatures. I'd probably use them for more multi-day trips, but if I'm doing a multi-day trip in the winter I'm almost certainly on skis and chances are I prefer a solid AT set up to silvrettas with mountaineering boots. Five years ago I never would have thought I'd prefer to climbing alpine ice in ski boots to approaching in mountaineering boots, but often I do.

My digression has a point: you're young and don't know what you're doing. Not an insult - it's a wonderful place to be. Are you looking to do cold-weather backingpacking? Glacier travel? Waterfall ice? Snow climbing? Ski mountaineering? New England? Colorado? Cascades? Terrain determines your boot and you might find that your interests diverge from your expectations as you get out there more. And if you end up doing Denali down the road, you won't regret that you didn't buy a sub-arctic 6,000 meter boot as your first, trust me.

When I first started moving toward winter backpacking and ultimately mountaineering, I wore La Sportiva Makalus for years. I now own an embarrassing array of boots, but still think the Makalus are the single most versatile boot I've owned. (Just don't try skiing in them.)