The Snowshoe Experience: A Beginner's Guide to Gearin Up & Enjoying Winter Fitness (Get Out & Do It! Guide) (Paperback)

by Claire Walter (Author) "Snowshoeing can mean the difference between loving and loathing winter..." (more)
Key Phrases: North America, Winter Trails Day, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The hottest thing in winter sports today is snowshoeing. It offers a great cardiovascular work-out for people of every age and fitness level. It's a low-impact sport, much simpler and safer than skiing. And modern aluminum snowshoes (the wood-and-moosehide models have been retired) are inexpensive, lightweight, sturdy, and look cool.

In The Snowshoe Experience Claire Walter acts as a kind of snowshoeing personal trainer, showing novices how to get maximum enjoyment out of an ancient wintertime activity that has become today's coolest cold-weather sport.

This is an activity kids, adults, and even seniors can do. Athletes will find it is a great way to stay in shape during the winter months. Couch potatoes will find that this is a fun activity that will lure them outside. And kids really love it. Snowshoeing is truly a sport for everyone.

Walter insists that if you can walk, you can snowshoe. Walter takes you, step-by-step, through the basics so you'll feel at ease--whether you are tramping across an open meadow or an urban park. And if you want to kick it up a couple notches, Walter discusses hiking in snowshoes, running in snowshoes (she supplies a list of places where you can find snowshoe races), and back-country adventures with snowshoes--including winter camping.

Whether you want a quiet walk across the snow, something with more of an adrenaline rush, or anything in between, The Snowshoe Experience is the one book that helps you do it all.

About the Author
The author of Snowshoeing Colorado and 23 other books, Claire Walter has also written numerous magazine articles on skiing, snowshoeing, scuba diving, and fitness. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; illustrated edition edition (November 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580175414
• ISBN-13: 978-1580175418
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #662,675 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Little Book, January 4, 2008

By	J. Zak (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This a great book. I have purchased 5 copies over the past two years and given them to friends and students that are interested in snowshoeing. The author knows what she is talking about! You do not have to have a lot of previous experience to enjoy this book. I highly recommend this publication for beginner and intermediate level snowshoers.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good writing, but close-minded, December 18, 2007

By	Snow Ranger (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This is a very well written, easy to read guide to the sport of snowshoeing, which wold be a lot better if the author was not so adamant about her dislike for wood-framed snowshoes. Her beliefs, based evidently on a single bad experience an untold number of years ago, are that traditional wooden snowshoes are "heavy" and "awkward", causing the user great pain because of "lack of traction...exhaustion and soreness brought on by the straddle walk" and "wearying waddle gait". Well, I have been using Maine-style wood and rawhide snowshoes for almost 40 years and I have never "waddled" nor experienced the balling up of snow she complains about. This might all be excusable if she didn't literally add insult to injury by referring to myself and those like me who prefer wood-framed snowshoes as "iconoclastic Luddites". Obviously, Ms. Walter has never taken to the snow on a pair of Ojibwe or Green Mountain-style snowshoes, many of which are no wider than their modern, aluminum and nylon bretheren. Traction can be added simply by clamping a pair of removeable crampons to the 'shoe under the feet, and good bindings can make all the difference in the world.

All that being said, the book is extrememely well written, and informative even for the experienced snowshoer. She even talks eloquently about the history of traditional snowshoes. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on "The Winter World" about things to watch for (and watch out for) while snowshoeing. I just hope that before she revises the text, Ms. Walter opens her mind a bit, and tries some properly fitted traditional snowshoes.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Snowshoe Experience, February 20, 2009

By	Dora A. Maul "Dory The Explorer" (Machias, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A good book for learning about snowshoeing. It includes the history of snowshoes, how to snowshoe, and even some things to enjoy along the way - i.e. animal tracks in the snow.