Guided snowshoe tours

Guided snowshoe tours are a wonderful method of communing with nature and unwinding from all of the excitement Whistler has to offer.

When the ground is frozen and blanketed with mounds of white fluffy snow, we humans tend to forget that nearly all of mother nature’s animals are very much awake. Only a few, such as the Marmot and Bears really hibernate. Even bears will remain awake if they have a constant food source available.

One fact that becomes obvious once winter settles and the snow comes to stay, is that the animal activity you really didn’t notice or see on the bare ground, is now very obvious by the tracks they have left in the snow.

Snowshoes have been the main mode of travel for people of the north who needed to get around to hunt and trap and to generally move about when the snow was deep. The University of Maine, Hudson Museum has a nice web site covering the The History of Snowshoes.

These were the snowshoes of yesterday. They were very effective and very large as compared to the modern shoes of today.

Once they were wet, or traveled in wet snow they became very heavy and awkward, the bindings loosened and sagged. Those bindings were made of rawhide which is a tough and very strong leather made by curing animal hide, drying it and cutting it into narrow strips. The snowshoe would be made using wet rawhide. After drying the hide would shrink and tighten.

Pity the poor trapper if he blundered into slush during a mid winter thaw with miles to go to reach his cabin. How he must have longed for the great new shoes of to-day.

There’s really no comparison with the two. In the old days, the trappers encountered every type of snow and the more his snowshoe covered the easier it was to travel. They were not much use on ice however, especially on hills after a silver thaw, or frozen rain.

The modern showshoe is lightweight with an aluminum frame, crampons to meet the challenge of icy conditions, foam bindings for warm comfort, heal cleats for descending ice. These are the type of snowshoe you would use on guided snowshoe tours.

You will be staying in a snowshoe paradise in Whistler. Snowshoe rentals are easily arranged at the shops in the village. Proper snowshoe equipment is a must.

If you want to go it alone, arrange for the gear and away you go. We always love the areas around creeks because animals such as river otter and mink are always on the move.

One of the better ways to go snowshoeing is by way of the guided snowshoe tours. Whistler Mountain offers guided tours around Green Lake and back to the Den at Nicklaus North where you will enjoy a hot spiced wine followed by a three course dinner and cheese and meat fondue.

You may prefer an assortment of treks starting after a ride up the mountain on the Gondola and leading to fantastic views and/or a pack lunch on the way down.