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Snowshoe Through Winter
by Jim Easterday
Winter is almost here. Time to make yourself a hot chocolate and curl up in your Hudson Bay blanket to watch Red Green and the Simpsons until the sun shines bright in May. Right?

No, no. If you park all winter on the chesterfield, you'll lose all those sculpted muscles you gained hiking and biking and playing softball all summer. Winter is not an excuse to quit breathing hard, it's time to get out and enjoy cold air in your lungs and the wet touch of snowflakes on your face.

What to do?
All that winter snow
You can always go downhill skiing and spend money to ride to the top of the mountain. That's moderate exercise. Cross-country skiing is better yet for keeping in shape, if you like groomed runs.

Backcountry ski touring doesn't cost as much but you must be a very good cross-country skier if you plan on skiing back down a steep trail through trees. No beginners need apply.

You can walk on the packed trails near town to stay in shape, but there aren't many trails and gosh it gets boring walking the same path. If only we could get off the path through the trees and along the trails that we use in the summer.
Make your own trail

Time to go snowshoeing.

I know what you're thinking if you tried showshoeing years ago. Those old fashioned wooden snowshoes got wet and the rawhide lacing stretched and the bindings never stayed tight and you spent all day adjusting the straps. Frustrating, especially when you couldn't go up steep slopes without sliding back down.

But wait. Technology has come to our rescue. Hi-tech snowshoes finally make it easy and pleasant to make tracks all winter.

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