Page 298 - The Lost Ways

You can easily use a couple hundred feet of paracord or rawhide to lace a set of
snowshoes, so make sure you have plenty. You will also need a small amount for tying
your snowshoes to your boots.

All any snowshoe binding consists of is a couple of straps, much like sandal straps. If you
don’t have leather to make the straps out of, you can use paracord.

Using Your Snowshoes

As I just mentioned, the snowshoes are tied onto the boots, usually with one strap over
the toes, a second over the arch of the foot, and a third around the back of the foot.
However, only the toe of the boot is firmly tied down to the shoe. The rest of the binding
is there to keep the shoe from falling off, but the heel lifts off the shoe when you are
walking.

The hardest part of getting used to walking in snowshoes is that you have to walk like you
are bow-legged. If you forget that little detail, you will find that you end up putting one
snowshoe overlapping the other. The first time that happened to me, I fell over in three
feet of powder snow. Argh.

While you are getting used to walking in snowshoes, it can be useful to use ski poles for

balance. However, once you are accustomed to them, you should be able to walk and
even run without any balance problems. The natural stride of using snowshoes is very
similar to your normal walking stride, with the exception of having your feet farther apart.

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