The primary purposes of a snowshoe are to provide flotation and traction. Since all MSR® snowshoes deliver exceptional traction, your next consideration is flotation, and this is where size comes into play.

Once you’ve decided on a snowshoe, assess your weight, including all the gear and clothing you’ll be wearing the majority of the time you snowshoe. If you only go on a couple of overnights a year, don’t include that 50-pound pack—just your fully clothed weight, plus a daypack and water. Then consider the snow conditions you’re likely to travel in most often—deep, untracked powder, or groomed trails and established snowshoe routes. Are you at a high altitude or very far north where snow generally falls deep and light and a larger snowshoe is in order, or are you at lower elevations or in a coastal range where snow has high moisture content and generally consolidates rapidly, making a smaller snowshoe your best choice?

The idea is to find the smallest possible snowshoe that matches your needs in most–not all–situations so you can maximize your agility and efficiency. Now, with Modular Flotation tails available across all MSR adult snowshoes, we’ve made that easier than ever. Should you find yourself on the cusp between sizes, always go with the smaller one and then simply add tails for added flotation as needed.

Each of these snowshoes offers outstanding traction, aggressive bindings, ergonomic deck shapes, Modular Flotation and excellent durability. However, when it’s all said and done, the plastic-deck Evo and Revo snowshoes are a bit more durable while the all-aluminum Lightning snowshoes offer our absolute greatest level of traction. You’ll find that because the Lightning’s 360° Traction™ Frame features a vertical wall of teeth all along the perimeter plus two crossmembers underneath, it offers slightly better traction on traverses. The decks of our Evo and Revo shoes are built from an incredibly tough, injection-molded plastic, giving them a slight advantage in durability in the course of normal use. These plastic decks also allow for greater flex underfoot while hiking. In contrast, the Lightning snowshoes offer a stiffer feel, and are quieter as you hike through harder-packed snow.

Learn more about their differences here!

Dry your snowshoes after each use. Then store them with bottoms together to keep the sharp under-bits form damaging other gear.

Inadequate traction is horribly inefficient, with every misstep wasting precious energy. That’s why we provide the industry’s best traction, regardless of what shoe you purchase—from kid’s snowshoes, to our most aggressive shoes. The result is a far more enjoyable experience with the increased efficiency of solid, no-slip footing and the confidence to go anywhere.

First and foremost, you should seek out bindings that suit your needs. Do you prioritize comfort or security? The best bindings do both. It’s also important to understand that regardless of what a tag says a binding does, it can’t do it if it’s frozen. Be leery of excessive use of nylon webbing and cordage–both absorb water and can leave your bindings rendered useless when frozen. Look for simplicity (fewer parts and potential for things to break) and light weight, and try them on in the store with the same footwear you’ll use in the field. Unless you have an exceptionally small or large foot, a good binding will be able to adapt to a range of footwear to keep your options open.

The employees of MSR proudly build every snowshoe we make. Snowshoes sold in North America and Japan are built in our factory in the US, while those sold in Europe have some final assembly done in our Cork, Ireland facility.