Sunday Morning Snowshoeing

For Christmas I bought Scott snowshoes. So, of course, I needed to get some as well to keep him company on his snowshoeing excursions :). I purchased them yesterday afternoon at the SportChek in the St. Laurent Mall.

I have a pair of Tubbs Xplore which is perfect for exercise walking for the newbie snowshoer. Both the Frontier and the Xplore are great economical snowshoes for those of us who are just starting out with the sport.

The Xplore gives me enough traction for moderately packed and gently rolling terrain. It's not great for more advanced, hillier terrain - but that's okay for what I intend to do. It has carbon steel crampons (teeth below the foot) to give me traction for the moderate hills that Scott leads us to :). The binding is pretty easy to use but doesn't have a lot of support - so it's not great for really hilly terrain. And it has a fully rotating or pivoting shoe that sheds snow off the back rather then flicking it up onto the back of your legs while you walk.  

Scott has a pair of Tubbs Frontier which is a slightly more advanced snowshoe then my Xplore. I wanted to get him a more sturdy snowshoe that will allow him to go into the more hilly terrain that his Geocaching hobbie demands. He'll be doing those excursions without me...I think. The two big differences that I've noticed between the Frontier and the Xplore are the binding and the crampons. The binding for the Frontier has what they call ControlWings™ which make them easier to put on your boot then the Xplore. And the crampons on the Frontier has an alignment on the heel that gives you more stability on hillier terrain. It basically lines your boot up with the heel on the snowshoe so that if you do end up on an off-kilter slope, your feet will stay stabilized on the snowshoe.

We started trail blazing...or bushwhacking, through the snow behind our house near the river. I wasn't that keen on the "whacking" part of the walk...and quickly made that point clear with Scott. We turned around and followed a friendlier trail. The weather was just fine at -13 degrees and a slight breeze.

On our walk I fell twice, I think because we were on a hillier terrain than what my snowshoes were made for. But Scott had no trouble at all...so I think the Frontier will work well for him.

Close to the end of our outdoor walk we came upon what looked exactly like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. I had to take a picture of it. Doesn't it look the same? Just sitting out there in the middle of the snow...all by itself decorated with a few little ornaments. Cute.

Tell me about your holiday activities!