While most winter sports may seem overly complicated and intimidating with their array of expensive gear and special techniques, snowshoeing is beginner friendly. If you can walk, you can snowshoe. The downside of this is ease of use is that, with snowshoes, otherwise unskilled beginners poorly educated about backcountry hazards, particularly avalanches, can easily get themselves into trouble. Once you've mastered basic snowshoeing technique, make sure to equip yourself with a basic backcountry avalanche hazard education too. Remember, the most important survival tool of all is your brain.
Step 1
Check to make sure the snowshoe bindings are securely fastened around your boots or shoes, with the ball of your foot positioned over the hinge where the binding connects to the snowshoe. If you move your foot, the snowshoes should respond immediately; there should be no wiggle room inside the bindings at all.
Step 2
Practice walking on smooth, flat or rolling terrain. Keep your stride natural and relaxed; if your snowshoes are properly sized, you shouldn't have to worry about them overlapping unless you try to cross one foot in front of the other. If you're particularly concerned about falling or your ability to balance, you might want to use a ski pole in each hand for extra stability.
Step 3
Practice walking up hills by lifting your knees and centering your weight over the crampons under your snowshoes. If your bindings are properly fastened, said crampons will be directly beneath the ball of your feet and walking uphill should feel quite natural.
Step 4
Go down hills by keeping your weight centered over the middle of your snowshoes, relying on the crampons to dig into the snow and provide traction. Some snowshoes have crampons underneath the heel portion of the binding to help with this. Leaning back onto the tails of your snowshoes reduces the crampons' efficacy since they need your weight centered over them to sink them into the snow.
Tips and Warnings
- Using telescoping ski or snowshoe poles will make long slope traverses more comfortable; you can shorten the pole on the uphill side or, if you're going straight up or down, shorten or lengthen the poles accordingly.
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