The thing about traditional snowshoes is that you’ve got to take care of them like the delicate equipment they are… ha ha ha… bullshit! I abused my snowshoes for years and then rebuilt them without a lot of drama. I spent under $100 on maintenance after three decades and there’s a good chance I’ll die before they wear out again.
Here’s a photo of my snowshoes leaning against my tent. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take photos of them before I started messing with them. This is the only photo I’ve got from “before rebuild”.
Yeah, there’s no snow. I was carrying them around because I was looking for parts. I don’t know about you but I can’t find “snowshoe parts” locally. I didn’t have enough information to buy parts online. So I carried them with me, bouncing around in my truck, whenever I happened to road trip past a likely seller. It took a while to find what I was looking for.
Of course, you shouldn’t be a slob like me. Treat all your gear like it’s important. Also you should eat your vegetables, stop swearing, and hit the gym. I’m not going to feel guilty about beat up equipment (at least snowshoes). I think sometimes people get a little “into” their stuff and become “maintenance bots” for gear that practically owns them instead of vice versa.
Snowshoes are tools; like a dumptruck or a shovel. Mine serve a purpose. I don’t think of them as an heirloom so much as a “favorite tool”. (I have a “favorite” shovel too.) I’ll happily beat the living shit out of my snowshoes because they’re not decorative wall hangers.
Daily care:
When you get out of the woods, shake off the excess snow before it freezes on. Then dry them out in your house. Or don’t. If you’re going back out there soon, it might be a good idea to shake them off and leave them cold.
I learned this from experience. A million years ago I had a job where I worked on snowshoes day after day. I’d try to dry the snowshoes overnight but instead they just got wet but never quite dry; over and over. The rawhide got a little grunky being wet over and over again… like a rawhide chew toy that’s been gnawed on by a Rottweiler. I would have been better off leaving them froze and just thawing / drying on weekends. What can I say? I was young and stupid. No worries, the snowshoes survived my mistreatment.
They say you ought to treat your snowshoes with spar varnish every year or as often as possible. This is excellent advice which I didn’t follow. (This only applies to traditional snowshoes that are made of stuff that can dry out, not space age plastic/neoprene/aluminum hybrid modern snowshoes.)
Storage:
My big advice is hang snowshoes on the wall when you’re not using them. They can sit on the wall, covered with dust and cobwebs, indefinitely. If they’re leaning up against a shelf or whatnot, they’ll get in the way and you’ll invariably step on them and break them. Plus snowshoes look cool hung on the wall! It’s probably best if they’re out of direct sun but they obviously don’t suffer from being cold. (UV messes with stuff.) Don’t leave them where they’ll get wet (hence the hanging part). It is perfectly OK to hang snowshoes in a drafty old woodshed for years at a time… provided the mice don’t eat ’em. Mice never gnawed on my snowshoes. I don’t know if that’s normal or I was just lucky.
More in my next post.
It wasn’t mice, it was chipmunks that did my beavertail traditional snowshoes in. 2/3rds of the webbing disappeared over the course of one winter. They lasted 30 years though. I don’t get out as much as I used to so bought a pair of the modern ones. Magnesium alloy frames, neoprene webbing. Your right, they don’t float as well as the older ones.
AC, check out Maine Guide snowshoes http://www dot mgsnowshoes dot com/
They may have what you need. I stumbled on the web site years ago and was looking to buy a pair for winter jack rabbit hunting but my knees went south and I’m barely able to walk on carpet let alone steep forest trails.