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Big Foot goes to the cottage

Snowshoes are fast becoming the gear for the cold season. Here’s our sampling of winter walkers.

By Liann Bobechko and Cathy Collins

The classic wooden snowshoe has been around for centuries – you’ve probably had a pair hanging almost as long on your cottage wall. So why, lately, has the backwoods winter gear become so hot?

According to retailers, snowshoeing is now the fastest-growing winter sport,outstripping cross-country skiing and snowboarding. Thanks to a revolution in materials and design, the new-school shoes are easier to wear and more fun to use – you feel less like you’ve strapped on platypus feet. The purists, of course, still stand by their bearpaws or other traditional designs, for their heritage, their beauty, and the fact that, in some circumstances, the old-school shoes still can’t be beat. What’s appealing about the low- and high-tech designs is that they require almost no learning curve. If you can walk, you can snowshoe, whether you’re toting loads along an icy trail from the car to the cottage door or straying off the beaten path for an afternoon of winter wanderlust. For those considering stepping out this season, here’s a rundown of the latest in snow walkers.

Just how do these things walk on snow anyway?

Actually, there’s always a degree of sinkage, unless the snow is very hardpacked. But the science behind the oversized shoe goes like this: the greater the surface area on which to spread your weight, the greater your ability to “float” in snow.

So what’s the diff between old-style and high-tech shoes?

Flotation: Traditional shoes, being wider and longer than almost all of the new designs, have better flotation. Theirdownside is that they are heavier and more cumbersome, especially for women,who have wider hips and a narrower stride than men and often find their shoe frames clacking together. The slimmer high-tech designs are lighter and more manoeuvrable; some are tailored even more so for women. However, because most have a smaller surface area, they don’t ride deep snow like the big old classics.

Frame: Most new-style frames are made of aluminum tubing (though some come in more exotic materials, such as carbon fibre). Aluminum is generally lighter than the traditional bentwood frame, a plus if you’re after manoeuvrability, but in slushy conditions, snow will stick more readily to the metal than wood, adding weight back on. Sticking can also happen when aluminum shoes get warmed in the car or cottage, then first touch snow; let them acclimatize outside for five minutes before setting off. Finally, wooden shoes are quieter than aluminum when they click together or bump a tree trunk, something keen naturalists might prefer.

Decking: This is the material that stretches across the frame and supports your weight in the snow. In new-style shoes, it’s made of waterproof plastic or synthetic fibre. On the traditional shoe, rawhide webbing creates the deck; although coated with varnish, it absorbs water if you’re out in the snow for a few hours, making a comparatively weighty shoe even heavier to lift. Anybody with a traditional shoe should re-varnish their webbing (and frame) at the end of each season. Or, consider a new hybrid design, which has the old-style wooden frame and bigger surface area, but plastic decking that won’t get waterlogged.

Bindings: The classic shoes use leather straps, which grip your boots well; they’re sold separately and have to be installed. The new designs come with synthetic bindings, some more sophisticated than others in how easily they can be adjusted and how well they support your boot. Speaking of boots, there are several brands specially designed for snowshoeing, but most winter footwear will fit in the bindings.

Traction: Traditionals are great on flat terrain and superior for breaking trail in deeper snow. However, because they don’t have crampons – metal claws that provide grip on the underside – there’s nothing to grab an icy surface. (And their large size makes climbing a challenge: You need to zigzag across slopes to ascend and descend.) The hybrid, whose traditional frame is made for trail-breaking and deep snow, offers the modern addition of crampons or spikes.

The aluminum shoes also have crampons, and some have extra rails of teeth. The number of claws and additional types of traction depend on the degree of slope the shoes are meant for: A recreational/hiking shoe, for example, would not require the grip of a mountaineering shoe.

Pivoting ability: Snowshoes have a system that lets you walk more or less naturally, even with a big flattish thing tied to your foot. All shoes have a hole in the decking that allows your toe to go down, and their bindings attach to something that gives them more movement, or “pivot,” so your heel can lift up. That “something” on traditional shoes is a piece of leather or lamp wick called the toe cord. On modern shoes, it can be a synthetic pivot band, or strapping flexible enough to let the bindings pivot, or a pivoting bar to which the bindings are attached. Some bindings have more pivot than others, giving the shoe a wider range of motion – as your boot heel rises, the shoe stays on the snow. More pivot is great for steep slopes or deep powder, because the shoe tail falls further from your heel, shedding snow more readily. But when you’re walking backwards, the same feature can cause the tail to drag in the snow (heel straps can be mounted on some models to correct this). A shoe with less pivot is fine on packed snow and trails.

What’s the right shoe for you?

Much depends on how you plan to use your shoes, as well as the typical snow conditions at your cottage and the type of terrain you’ll most often be on. If you just want to transport yourself and supplies along a packed snowmobile trail, a wooden shoe or a no-frills aluminum shoe will do; if it tends to be icy, choose the one with traction. For trekking over cottage-country hill and dale, you’ll want an aluminum design with lots of traction for slopes, a bigger surface area (better flotation and balance), and good pivoting ability. If you’ll mostly be breaking trails on snowy flat terrain, such as a lake or an unploughed road, the traditional or hybrid shoe may be your best bet, though a larger aluminum design might work too. Snowshoes don’t come in S, M, or L. They are sold by their dimensions – e.g., 8" wide by 28" long. In choosing the right size, you need to estimate the total weight your shoe must bear, including the weight of your body, outdoor clothing, boots, and whatever you’ll be typically toting, whether that’s a daypack or boxes of groceries for a winter weekend. Type and depth of snow factors in as well; if, for instance, you were using the shoes in only hard-packed conditions, you could get away with a smaller size since you wouldn’t need the flotation.

On the whole, however, it’s better to err on the side of larger (which means longer in the new-school shoes) to lessen the sinkage, although people with smaller builds may feel more comfortable going one size down.

All the snowshoe manufacturers have a range of styles, from entry-level shoes to very specialized ones, and price goes up accordingly. As well, within each style, price usually rises with shoe size. You don’t need to invest in specialized boots, but telescoping poles are strongly advised for balance and a better workout. Whether they’re high-tech, classic, hybrid, entry-level, or performance, once you’ve got the shoes made for your kind of cottage walking, nothing could be simpler. Strap ’em on and go.

 

Photo of new-style snowshoe and action shot courtesy of Tubbs Snowshoes

Published in the November/December 2005 issue of Cottage Life magazine.
Copyright © 2005 by Cottage Life. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.