For the first time this year, I went snowshoeing on Mount Hood in Oregon. I have frequently snowshoed in the Cascade Mountains in both Oregon and Washington for both pleasure and work. Prior to my trip I had tested, inspected, and performed maintenance on all my gear. Some of my equipment is over thirty years old. Both the bindings and the snowshoes I was using were purchased back in the early 1970s. The bindings are leather and starting to show signs of wear. This year instead of treating the bindings with Snow Seal, I used Danner’s Boot Conditioner. When treated, they looked new. I still took lamp wicking as emergency bindings just in case.

During the trip my boots came out of the bindings. I thought they had broken, but no, they were loose. I retighten them and continued on. Well this kept happening as if I was in a cartoon. I finally had to resort tp punching new holes in the straps because the leather continued to stretch. I never did revert to the emergency bindings, but I spent quite a bit of time with my butt higher than my head. When I bought my last pair of Danner boots, they had warned me that the conditioner I also purchased “could”stretch leather but I had no idea.

The trip was to have beed a training session on winter survival sponsored by the Forest Service but no one showed up. So I spent a beautiful snowy day snowshoeing with all my impressive survival equipment out in the woods with a pretty, young, female Forest Service Volunteer. But I don’t think I impressed her since I kept having to reattach my bindings like a three year old kid trying to learn to tie his shoes. Sometimes life is just not fair.

I love snowshoeing...! I snowshoe 2-3 times a week in a local snowshoeing club.

Always fun to prepare a nice survival kit and carry it in your backpack, just knowing it's there... Makes you feel good. <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

Enjoy the snow! And maybe you'd enjoy new snowshoes, take a look at the Atlas 1030... hmmmmm!!!

Last time I went snowshoeing up at Mt. Adams, I broke a binding and had no effective means of repair with me. What a miserable time that was.

My athabascan pattern, wood and rawhide snowshoes with lampwick bindings spend most of the year on display. I sometimes get patronising looks and comments by the goretex-plastic shoe crowd. I usually start talking about the 'mad mountain man' who left a LSD crazed life in L.A. and was rumoured to remove gold teeth from his victims. About then I rattle my PSK tin in my anorak while looking intently if they're smiling <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Could it be you are having flashbacks? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

>>About then I rattle my PSK tin in my anorak while looking intently if they're smiling <<

I can tell that I haven't been visiting often enough becasue it took a good 5 seconds for me to catch on. The humor clicked when I glanced at who the poster was! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I just snowshoed for the first time this month on our recent troop campout. The snow was not that deep, 4-6 inches, but I was till amazed at how much easier it was to get around in them. Wahoo!

The shoes were a gift from a friend. They are from L.L. Bean and look like these only with a synthetic lacing, not rawhide. Where can I find info on assembling a suitable emergency repair kit. Thanks.

Bill, The L.L. bean shoes were strung with rawdide or a grey-green neoprene. Supposedly it doesn't sag when wet like rawhide. A traditional shoe repair kit consists of a few steel plates and screws in case you crack the frame, a length of webbing that would be threaded in to any web damage and reproofed with the various shellacs or laquers used to dope the whole affair. A spare length of lampwicking would quickly replace the traditional bindings.