How to Snowshoe Series: Winter Hiking in the Backcountry; Snowshoes, Poles, Boots, and Clothing Choices
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If you are new to cold weather hiking, and snowshoeing in particular, making sure you have the right equipment with you - and ensuring that you and your family stay safe and have an enjoyable experience - may feel daunting. Today’s post has hopefully helped cut through all of the noise and focused things in on the gear and clothing considerations you may want to have top of mind.
While, it can be frustrating that there isn’t a magic piece of equipment that is perfect for all conditions, we hope that we’ve presented an honest look at the tradeoffs so that you can make an informed choice when it comes to outfitting your trip.
But also, we’d like to re-emphasize that “starting small,” is always a good policy. If it’s the first time out for you or members of your family - and particularly if it is for the kids - we can’t over state the importance of making the experience a positive one. You can “start small” through a number of practical steps:
Consider renting your equipment, rather than buying. As we mentioned in the video, you can rent snowshoeing equipment, and even winter clothing, these days. And if you don’t have an outdoors retailer or an REI in your area that rents, you can try online rental services like Outdoor Geek and Arrive Outdoors.
Stay as local as you can. Don’t travel far. This will reduce the pressure to feel like you need to make a day of it if anyone in your group isn’t enjoying the experience. Make it easy to turn around and not feel like the day was wasted.
Go someplace familiar. If you have a favorite warm-weather haunt that is accessible during the winter, maybe try that as a first experience. For kids, it’s always a great thing to couple new experiences with things or places for which they already have a positive association.
Keep it short. Don’t try to cover too much ground the first time out. The winter makes everything a little harder. You have more weight on your feet, so moving those legs step after step will be harder. You sink into the snow a little bit, so each step need to also be a little bit higher. You body is trying to keep itself warm, so it’s burning through extra calories. Keep your expectations modest.
Keeping it short also means that you can overpack a little. When you don’t fully know what you want to bring - what you will use and what is maybe just extra weight - you can err on the side of too much if you aren’t worried about covering distance. Then, once you have a bit of experience under your belt, start weeding out he equipment you never seem to reach for when you are out on the trails.
Having fun out there doesn’t need to be “go big or go home.” In fact, in harsher environments where mistakes can really be costly, pushing your comfort zone just a little bit at a time is a far more sustainable path for finding true enjoyment in any type of conditions and during any time of year.