SARGuy Gear

Searching in Eastern Washington in the winter usually requires snowshoes or skis.  I’m not much of a skier (yet), so I strap a pair of Evo Ascent shoes by MSR on my feet and step it out.  I got a pair last year for Christmas and the Evo Flotation Tails for my birthday a few weeks later.  My sister must really love me!

The shoes are really easy to strap into, even when wearing gloves and they are reasonably light on the feet or attached to your pack.  The steel blades and crampons are super durable and bite into snow that is iced over with little difficulty.  I found these to be exceptionally easy to walk in.  I put them on and started out - it required no training and no special stance or careful foot positioning.  I was able to use a pretty natural stride and gait to move across the snow.  One feature the Evo Ascent has over the standard Evo is the Televator, a bar that you can snap into place when snowshoeing uphill.  This works to close the gap, so your heel doesn’t have to travel as far up and down when moving uphill.  It’s a simple idea with simple, careful execution that doesn’t add any substantial weight to the shoes.

While I have the flotation tails that slide into place and are secured with a screw - with a handle that you can manipulate easily with gloves or mittens on - I have yet to really need them.  Most of the areas I have used the snowshoes to date has been fairly packed, deep snow.  I wouldn’t be able to walk on it without snowshoes, but I haven’t needed the additional flotation.  Now that the snow is back in the area, perhaps I can get some miles on them this year.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 22:57 and is filed under Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.