Snowshoe vs barebooting

vftt.org

Help Support vftt.org:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

andrewb

Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
132
Reaction score
10
I have always worn my snowshoes rather than carried them even when the trail was well-packed. I do this because strapping them to my pack is a pain and I enjoy wearing them anyways.

I have heard from some people that it is bad form to bareboot because it basically ruins the trail. After seeing the damage a phantom stranger did to a trail, I can't agree more. My feeling is if you don't like to wear snowshoes, you have no business winter hiking so stay home and stop ruining the trails. How do others think about about this?
 
This topic traditionally erupts into flame wars. Some people like wearing snowshoes less, and some don't even own them. Many ski areas ban barebooting, but a lot of people feel public lands should be open to all.

How would you feel if someone said that snowshoes less than 10x36 should be banned, as they make tracks too small for larger shoes to walk in? (see other note)
 
My feeling is if you don't like to wear snowshoes, you have no business winter hiking so stay home and stop ruining the trails. How do others think about about this?
Hey, I'm a backcountry skier, so if anything I'm even more upset about post holed trails. I wish people would use snowshoes, and also not hike up the skin track, but I think your statement is too strong. If someone wants to suffer by postholing, as much as it messes up things for the rest of us, it's their choice.

As Roy mentioned, we have this discussion every winter, and it's unlikely people's minds are going to change as a result. We don't have a lot of control over others, and the Whites aren't the ADKs where they have regulations about this. Please keep the discussion civil.
 
I have heard from some people that it is bad form to bareboot because it basically ruins the trail. After seeing the damage a phantom stranger did to a trail, I can't agree more. My feeling is if you don't like to wear snowshoes, you have no business winter hiking so stay home and stop ruining the trails. How do others think about about this?

Perhaps we should specify what surface conditions we're talking about.

If a trail is firm frozen granular (packed), barebooting isn't going to make so much as a dent and, with traction, may be a safer bet.

If a trail is spring snow (not well packed), then snowshoeing is in the least the polite thing to do.
 
Also consider that the snowshoe is designed to keep you up out of the deep snow, it eases travel in the woods or wherever. Those who don't use them may have a much more exhausting day.
And, it isn't as if someone is wrecking ski touring tracks at a touring center.

I don't think anyone should get a dirty look if they're barebooting on packed snow.

DaveG.
 
Last edited:
To me, snowshoes are a necessary evil; I wear them when I need them and take them off the minute I don't. Snowshoing for fun is like going to the dentist for fun. (No offense Paradox)

Beyond that please don't presume to tell me where and when I should or shouldn't hike.
Bob
 
To me, snowshoes are a necessary evil; I wear them when I need them and take them off the minute I don't. Snowshoing for fun is like going to the dentist for fun. (No offense Paradox)

Beyond that please don't presume to tell me where and when I should or shouldn't hike.
Bob

This is pretty much my sentiment (except that maybe wearing the snowshoes is not QUITE as annoying as it is for you :D).

Plus, Roy made another good point in a previous thread. Just because you are wearing snowshoes does not mean you are not technically postholing. Unbroken powder for a 260 pound guy wearing 22" MSR's means I am just make 22" long postholes. Would someone now like to dictate how many and what types/sizes of snowshoes I should own now? Giggy said it best once...putting up with postholes is just one more thing about winter hiking you are just going to have to deal with. Until the Forest Service institues snowshoe requirments like the DEC does in the Daks (which is not likely to ever happen) then it is something people will just have to live with.

Brian
 
On trails, in the Adirodack High Peaks, regulations call for wearing snowshoes if there is 8" of snow on the ground. Not everyone likes it, especially when the trail is boilerplate, but those are the regs.
 
Plus, Roy made another good point in a previous thread. Just because you are wearing snowshoes does not mean you are not technically postholing.
Yawn.

No matter what you are wearing, you will leave some sort of track in soft snow. Pragmatically, all one can do is ask that others use reasonable* gear to minimize one's impact. Whether a track is postholing or not is a judgment call on the part of the observer. (And different observers may not agree.)

* Reasonable gear would depend upon both the typical conditions and the specific conditions. (For instance, IMO it is not reasonable to expect an NE trail hiker to have snowshoes appropriate for 5% Utah snow because 5% snow is very rare in the NE.)

Until the Forest Service institues snowshoe requirments like the DEC does in the Daks (which is not likely to ever happen) then it is something people will just have to live with.
IMO, static rules such as are in force in the DAKs is not a good solution either. Snow depth alone is a poor gage of a hiker's impact. (I've heard of cases where a ranger insisted that a hiker use snowshoes on a hard-packed trail. A triumph of rules over competent judgment...)


There may be no good solution--static rules have problems and not everyone agrees on what constitutes acceptable impact. And even if all experienced hikers did agree, there is a never-ending supply of beginners. (And then there are the people who don't have them, refuse to rent them, and/or leave them in the car but still think it is ok to bareboot in deep soft snow.)

Doug
 
The real issue is in the steeps. When postholers wreck the consolidated snow pack it becomes salt which offers absolutely no traction at all with snowshoes.

Do what you want but at least consider the guy behind you.
 
The real issue is in the steeps.

But it can be a real problem at lower elevations as well! I have been frustrated many a time simply walking on flat ground with a bunch of post holes throughout, even while I'm in snowshoes.
It is most intense, though, on the steeper terrain.
 
if you don't like a few holes in your trail, expect a red-carpet treatment everytime you hike, consider a post hole "ruining a trail", turn around when the trail isn't broken out, think other people are somehow obligated to make a nicenice trail for you, somehow can't manage to snowshoe over a few bumps, then don't hike in winter.

haven't had my coffee yet. :cool:
 
The real issue is in the steeps. When postholers wreck the consolidated snow pack it becomes salt which offers absolutely no traction at all with snowshoes.

Do what you want but at least consider the guy behind you.

What's worse? Doing that or sliding down the sections and wiping out what was done on the way up?
 
Man, my first pair of snowshoes arrive next week.. just wait til this 300 lb. bear on his 32" shoes hit the trail. :eek:
 
I have been on well packed trails that are barley the width of one snow show. Keeping the snow shoes on meant I had to walk funny(toe to toe). That causes pain in my hips after awhile, not to mention tripping constantly.
 
Idea

Recently, I wrote a letter to Nintendo, requesting that they make a "Winter Hiking" game for their Wii system. I carefully explained that winter hiking in the Northeast has become far too dangerous for the average New Englander -- post holed trails, or packed trails ruined by careless buttsliders are the norm leaving us to decide do we stay home and watch television or do we risk serious bodily harm or at least a day's worth of aggravation being out in the woods, tripping over some yokel's postholes. I've actually resorted to volunteering at work to come in on the weekends for free in order to avoid my conundrum of deciding what to do. But now, I've come up with a solution that will leave the cavemen to their knuckledragging postholing techniques and enable me to enjoy winter hiking with fresh, nicely groomed trails!

What I proposed to Nintendo was a multi-parted scheme. First, the game itself, obviously titled "W48" -- the object being to hike all 48 NH 4k peaks in Winter. Second, the gamer would wear special "shoes" that would mimic the motion of snow shoes (with a special "crampon" attachment) therefore enabling this to be an "interactive" and "workout" style game so that you're actually exercising in the process. No couch potatoes please: only those in top physical shape need apply. The third and last idea, and probably an very optional and expensive add-on is for those that would enjoy the W48 Wii game but would miss the cold "Winter" experience.... a refrigerated suit that the user would wear in order to play the game. This "Eco-Suit" would replicate "Winter Conditions" that the user would expect to encounter in his or her hike: snow, occasional freezing rain (Turn the game off!), extreme cold and so on. The particularly hardy gamer would find that by wearing the Eco-Suit one would enhance the extreme physical aspect of Winter Hiking in the Whites.

I haven't heard back from Nintendo and frankly, I'm pessimistic about the game reaching the general public by 2011 which means we'll have to wait a few years to be able to enjoy Winter hiking that the Giggy's and Fulsteroy's have stolen from us with their post holes and bareboots. But alas, it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, you can help by bombarding Nintendo with requests for a W48 game for the Wii... but don't expect compensation because it was my idea first. *Note: I asked Nintendo not to design the game with postholed trails as a potential hazard. I just told them to leave that idea at home.

-Dr. Wu
 
Last edited:
Top