A friend called me two weeks ago and asked if I'd be interested in going snowshoeing. I said "SURE, why not!!"
New Years eve Day, we went up to Snoqualmie Pass. (in his Hemi Durango)
He borrowed a pair of these from a friend, for me to use:
(he had an identical pair)
http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/snowshoes/trek/evo/product
If you look at the top shoe in the photo, the one where you see the bottom, you can see it has a pivot point. The binding pivots on that, so you walk normally since your foot pivots on the actual traction piece (the body of the snow shoe). The little gripper piece below your toe bites in as you take each step, which made it very easy to walk up hill on a compacted hiking / cross country ski trail.
Sportco in Fife sells them. They are super light weight and work very well for going up hill, which was the terrain going out from where we parked. We took the Gold Creek exit off I-90 (just west of the Hyak exit).
MSR makes them, and they are kind of geared towards varying terrain and the wet snow on the west side of the state, which long time Washingtonians call "Cascade Concrete" . :rotflmao: :rotflmao:
They aren't exactly cheap, but they sure worked well. It was very easy to walk in them as well.