Snowshoe hacks to make life easier
THE OTHER WEEK JENN and I were about to embark on a hike through the winter woods when she uttered a quick but effective sentence that Canadians have been using ever since passive-aggressive natives introduced us to the concept of snowshoeing.
She said: “You go ahead, I have to tie my boot laces.”
It was only after I broke trail for 10 yards that it occurred to me that she was wearing snowshoes and boots without laces. Jenn, God bless her, had successfully pulled off the oldest trick in the snowshoer’s book. And, as a result, I became the trailbreaker.
Most Canadians are inherently aware that there are two kinds of snowshoers: the trail breakers and the ones who are smarter.
Of course, there are many people who actually take pride in trailbreaking and would not have it any other way. These are people who enjoy the feel of snow falling down the back of their collars as they snowshoe under evergreen boughs and who revel in the self-deprecating
humour that comes with placing a snowshoe tip under a snow covered log and falling face first into the snowdrift on the other side. As you will note, both of these things validate my point about there being two kinds of snowshoers.
Despite all this, there are times when, through no fault of your own, you become the trailbreaker. The incident I cited at the beginning of this column is a prime example. It’s not my fault that Jenn is smarter than me.
Having said that there are tricks we trailbreakers can use to get out of our unfortunate circumstance. One of my favourite is the circle sprint.
Basically, you lead the snowshoeing party and get a little ahead. Then you sprint forward circling right or left until you loop back onto the trail you broke behind the last person in the party.
There is risk to this maneuver however. You see everyone ahead of you might also pull the same move and you could conceivably become the group’s trailbreaker once again, but this time you’d be dizzy too.
A more reliable trick is the downhill step aside.
In this maneuver, you lead the party down a steep slope. Then, as you pass a big tree or boulder, you jump off the trail and wait there until momentum carries the others past you. After that, it’s a simple matter of continuing down the trail they have just broke until you get to the bottom of the hill where some untangling of snowshoers might be required.
These two physical moves work with snowshoers who are not paying attention because they are lost in the beauty of the winter woods – the fools. Most times, however, people are so terrified of assuming the trailbreaker position that it’s not that easy to shake them off your tail. Heck, in some cases the effort mimics a World War I dog fight.
That’s where the whoopee cushion comes in. Typically, I get far ahead of the group and then operate my whoopee cushion while everyone behind me is appreciating the stillness of the winter woods or examining a deer bed or nest cavity.
One loud noise is generally all it takes before you are following everyone else. On the other hand, they just might ask you to break trail with the wind at your back.
Like I said, those people are smart.